The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that employees of religious schools do not have civil rights employment protections, a move that allows such institutions to legally discriminate against LGBTQ+ teachers and guidance counselors.
The 7-2 decision came in two separate cases, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James v. Darryl Biel, in which two elementary school teachers were fired under the “ministerial exception,” which precludes religious institutions from adhering to anti-discrimination laws for employees who qualify as “ministers,” even when they claim discrimination based on their race, sex, or sexuality.
In St. James v. Darryl Biel, former fifth-grade teacher Kristen Biel was fired from the school after a 2014 breast cancer diagnosis required her to take time off for surgery and chemotherapy. Biel died of cancer in 2019 with her lawsuit still pending. In Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, Agnes Morrissey-Berru sued the school that fired her in 2015 for age discrimination.
The ruling was preceded by the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171, in which SCOTUS unanimously declared that courts were prohibited from interfering with internal decisions by church authorities.
Although both Biel and Morrissey-Berru were not given the title of “minister,” and have less religious training than the teacher in the 2012 ruling, the court said the same rule applies, effectively expanding the ministerial exception to include employees at religious school.
“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.
“Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, highlighted in a dissent that the teachers taught primarily secular subjects and lacked “substantial religious titles and training.”
“In foreclosing the teachers’ claims, the Court skews the facts, ignores the applicable standard of review, and collapses Hosanna-Tabor’s careful analysis into a single consideration: whether a church thinks its employees play an important religious role,” she wrote. “The Court’s apparent deference here threatens to make nearly anyone whom the schools might hire “ministers” unprotected from discrimination in the hiring process. That cannot be right. Although certain religious functions may be important to a church, a person’s performance of some of those functions does not mechanically trigger a categorical exemption from generally applicable antidiscrimination laws.”
This expansion of the ministerial exception is likely to affect LGBTQ+ faculty at religious schools. Last year, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis instructed over 70 schools under its administration to fire any LGBTQ+ staff members. From that decision, two guidance counselors, Shelly Fitzgerald and Lynn Starkey, were fired because of their same-sex marriages. Both Starkey and Fitzgerald have filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese, although Wednesday’s ruling could prove challenging for the case.
“Nobody deserves to be discriminated against at their workplace. Today’s ruling means religious institutions who wish to fire or refuse to hire school teachers or other staff based on age, race, sexual orientation, or other discriminatory factors now have legal cover for doing so,” said Maggie Siddiqi, director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress, in a statement. “This decision could strip away the right of millions of workers at religious institutions — from teachers to health care professionals—to sue employers if they experience employment discrimination. These critical legal rights should not be denied to workers.”
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