Job-Bias Suits Against Religious Groups Curbed by Top Court
January 18, 2012, 2:10 AM ESTBy Greg Stohr
(Adds court’s reasoning starting in sixth paragraph.)
Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court gave religious groups a new shield from job-bias suits, throwing out a case filed by a fourth-grade teacher who was fired from a Lutheran school in suburban Detroit.
The justices unanimously said for the first time that the Constitution protects churches from employment-discrimination claims by ministers. The court also said Cheryl Perich fell within that exception, in part because the church that ran the school conferred the title of “minister” on her.
“The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith and carry out their mission.”
Appeals courts to have considered the issue had uniformly recognized the “ministerial exception” to job discrimination laws, while disagreeing as to its breadth.
Perich and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were seeking to sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act, contending that the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School had discriminated against her because she had been diagnosed with narcolepsy. A federal appeals court had let her suit go forward.
Religion Clauses
Roberts said the ministerial exception was required by the First Amendment’s two religion clauses -- its ban on government “establishment of religion” and its guarantee of “the free exercise thereof.”
The Obama administration argued that the Constitution doesn’t require any special exception for religious organizations. The government said churches, like other employers, are protected primarily by a separate First Amendment right, the freedom to associate.
Roberts called that position “untenable.”
“We cannot accept the remarkable view that the religion clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers,” the chief justice wrote.
The court’s reasoning doesn’t necessarily preclude all religious-school teachers from suing. Roberts said the rejection of Perich’s suit was based on “all the circumstances of her employment.”
Roberts said Perich taught religion along with secular subjects, led her students in prayer and took part in chapel services.
Roberts also said the court wasn’t deciding whether religious-school employees could press other types of suits, including breach-of-contract claims.
The case is Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC, 10-553.
--Editors: Justin Blum, Leslie Hoffecker
To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net
