UNITED STATES
Corporate Counsel
Tony Mauro
The National Law Journal
January 12, 2012
A surprisingly unanimous Supreme Court on Wednesday endorsed a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, asserting that under the First Amendment, government must keep its nose out of the hiring and firing of clergy.
“When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. for the Court in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC. “The church must be free to choose who will guide it on its way.”
The ruling ends a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Cindy Perich, a teacher and “commissioned minister” at a Lutheran school in Michigan. She claimed she had been fired in retaliation for threatening to file a lawsuit under the Americans With Disabilities Act. She disputed the school’s treatment of her after she was diagnosed with narcolepsy, and the school said she was fired for insubordination and failure to follow internal dispute resolution procedures.
All 12 federal appeals courts have long recognized some form of a ministerial exception, but the Supreme Court had not given its imprimatur until today. Religious groups celebrated the ruling, with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty proclaiming it as “the most important religious liberty case in 20 years.”
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