Supreme Court rules job discrimination laws don’t protect church-school teachers

WASHINGTON –

The Supreme Court on Wednesday banned teachers who work at church-run schools from filing discrimination lawsuits against their employers, ruling that the Constitution’s protection for religious liberty exempts church schools from state and federal anti-discrimination laws.

The justices, by a

7-2 vote, shielded two Catholic elementary schools in Los

Angeles County from discrimination claims by two teachers who complained they were unjustly fired, one due to an illness and the other due to age.

The court found that since such schools are part of a church’s religious mission, the government may not interfere with decisions about hiring, supervision and firing of teachers.

The decision effectively closes the courthouse door to tens of thousands of teachers nationwide in religious and parochial schools who encounter workplace discrimination based on their gender, age, disability or sexual orientation that would otherwise be impermissible. It is also written broadly enough that it could include many other types of workers at the schools, such as counselors, nurses, coaches and office workers.

In the past, the Supreme Court has recognized an implied “ministerial exemption” that shields churches, synagogues or other religious bodies from being sued by priests, pastors and other ministers. The issue in the pair of cases from Southern California was whether that exemption extended more broadly to teachers in a church-run school whose primary duty was not necessarily religious instruction.

“The First Amendment protects the right of religious institutions to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority in Our Lady of Guadalupe School vs. Morrissey-berru.

“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,” he continued. “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.”

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

Kristen Biel was a fifth-grade teacher at St. James School in Torrance, in Los Angeles County, whose teaching contract was canceled shortly after she told the principal she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

She later sued under the Americans With Disabilities Act, which protects employees from discrimination based solely on a disease like cancer. She died last year, but her husband, Darryl Biel, maintained the suit.

Agnes Morrissey-berru had taught fifth grade at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Hermosa Beach, also in Los Angeles County, for decades when the principal suggested she might want to retire. She refused, and her teaching contract was not renewed. She then sued, alleging age discrimination.

Lawyers for the Catholic Archdiocese said the suits should be dismissed, citing the ministerial exception recognized by the high court.

Two federal district judges agreed, but the

9th Circuit Court cleared both suits to proceed, ruling that neither teacher was a religious leader at school.