By: Andrew Coyle, Staff Member, Vol. 19<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teachers as \u201cMinisters\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/strong>In its recent opinion in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrisey-Berru<\/em><\/a>, the U.S. Supreme Court changed the \u201cministerial exception\u201d of the religion clauses<\/a> of the First Amendment. The ministerial exception is a judge-made doctrine that a religious organization can use to bar a court from hearing a labor law claim brought by an employee against that employer, so long as that employee qualifies as a \u201cminister.\u201d The Supreme Court has now broadened the scope of employees that qualify as ministers. Now, the ministerial exception forecloses federal courts from hearing employment discrimination suits brought by former teachers employed by parochial schools against the schools themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court in Our Lady of Guadalupe <\/em>defined the former teachers as \u201cministers,\u201d making the ministerial exception applicable and barring the teachers from bringing their claims. This decision may advance the important objective of protecting a religious school\u2019s First Amendment rights, but it does so by eroding anti-discrimination laws. The \u201cfunctional\u201d approach adopted by the majority to determine who is a \u201cminister\u201d will lead to unjust results for thousands of employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Legal Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/strong>In 2012, the Supreme Court first decided whether the \u201cministerial exception\u201d in fact existed<\/em>. In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. E.E.O.C.<\/em><\/a>, the Court found that a former parochial schoolteacher was a \u201cminister\u201d for the purposes of the ministerial exception. The Court, therefore, barred the teacher\u2019s labor lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In so doing, the Court had to define just what made someone a minister. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts identified four factors<\/a> that would be considered in determining ministerial status: whether the employee was held out as a minister with a formal title, whether the employee had \u201csignificant religious training,\u201d whether the employee held himself out as a minister, and the religious functions the employee served.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Alito, joined by Justice Kagan, wrote a concurring opinion that placed special emphasis on the religious functions factor. Alito argued that the main part of the analysis in determining ministerial status should be examining the function that the employee served within the religious organization itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Thomas also wrote a separate concurring opinion. Thomas argued that courts should be deferential to a religious institution\u2019s good-faith understanding of who in fact is a minister in their organization. He thus rejected any specific test to determine who falls into the ministerial exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Supreme Court did not decide another ministerial exception case until Our Lady of Guadalupe<\/em>.<\/a> This case was consolidated with St. James School v. Biel<\/em>.<\/a> Both cases involved former teachers at Catholic parochial schools. In both cases, the schools did not renew the teachers\u2019 contracts, citing their teaching performance as the basis for not renewing. In Our Lady of Guadalupe<\/em>, the teacher believed the termination was actually because of her age and filed suit against the school under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (\u201cADEA\u201d). In St. James<\/em>, the teacher was employed at the schoolwhen she learned that she had breast cancer. She took time off from work to receive treatment. The school did not renew her contract, citing her \u201cclassroom management.\u201d The teacher filed suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (\u201cADA\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both cases eventually reached the Ninth Circuit. That court considered the four factors outlined in Hosanna-Tabor <\/em>and concluded that neither teacher could qualify as a minister. The Supreme Court eventually took both cases and consolidated them, leaving us with the recent decision in Our Lady of Guadalupe<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This time, Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion. In a 7-2 decision, Alito used the \u201cfunctional\u201d approach that he advocated for in Hosanna-Tabor<\/em>. The majority concluded that neither teacher could bring suit against the schools because they functioned as \u201cministers\u201d in their duties to provide an education to students. Alito reasoned that a religious education was at the heart of religious freedom, so the teachers functioned as \u201cministers.\u201d This means the schools could terminate them without regard to labor laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Thomas wrote a separate concurrence, again advocating for the same \u201cdeferential\u201d approach he outlined in Hosanna-Tabor<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing in dissent, Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ginsburg, argued that the decision gave too much power to religious organizations in choosing to fire employees. She pointed out seemingly absurd results that the majority\u2019s decision would allow (e.g. a Jewish teacher could be considered a \u201cminister\u201d of the Catholic faith even though the teacher is not Catholic). Sotomayor argued that the decision would lead to patently unfair results that would undermine labor laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Implications<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/strong> Our Lady of Guadalupe <\/em>raises several issues and leaves other questions unanswered. First, Justice Sotomayor is spot-on in recognizing that the majority\u2019s approach gives a religious organization far too much power in dismissing employees. If ministerial status is determined mostly by function without consideration of the other factors outlined in Hosanna-Tabor<\/em>, a school could define almost any employee as a minister if they could identify a religious function that the employee serves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, a janitor at a school could be called a \u201cminister\u201d simply because the janitor leads the school in prayer every morning before class. Prayer is certainly at the heart of many religious organizations\u2019 goals, but leading prayer alone does not normally make one a minister of a faith. However, under the current test set forth in Our Lady of Guadalupe<\/em>, as long as the employee serves a religious function, a court could consider that employee a minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the majority\u2019s approach, almost any <\/em>religious function seems to qualify an employee as a minister. In Our Lady of Guadalupe<\/em>, both teachers occasionally led students in prayer or taught lessons from the Bible, but religious instruction was not the primary function of either teacher\u2019s employment. Despite this, the Court thought this was enough for both teachers to be ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A religious employer may require <\/em>all employees to serve similar religious functions. In essence, under the current test, all <\/em>employees could be considered ministers. If any employee of the religious institution can qualify as a minister, then the ministerial exception effectively defangs any protections given to those employees from labor laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The functional approach now taken by the Court creates a significant moral hazard. The ministerial exception has now turned from a narrow exception into a blank check to discriminate. While the Court hoped to protect religious freedom in broadening the exception, this decision conflicts with so many goals and protections of labor laws like the ADEA and ADA. The four-factor analysis in Hosanna-Tabor <\/em>was a reasonable way to determine ministerial status because it did not treat every employee as a minister. The Court should return to that analysis. Until then, more employees will find themselves without a remedy for being unjustly fired. Should the First Amendment leave them without such a remedy? The Court should decide soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Andrew Coyle, Staff Member, Vol. 19 Teachers as \u201cMinisters\u201d In its recent opinion in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrisey-Berru, the U.S. Supreme Court changed the \u201cministerial exception\u201d of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. The ministerial exception is a judge-made doctrine that a religious organization can use to bar a …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[23,59,114,150,156,204,225,226,257,302,305,319],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}