UNITED STATES
Jezebel
Anna North
Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided that a religious institution can fire a minister at will, regardless of federal employment laws. And religious groups may get to choose who they consider to be “ministers.” Here’s why that’s a terrible idea.
According to the Times, Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission involved a teacher named Cheryl Perich, who said she was discriminated against at her Lutheran school due to her narcolepsy. The school ultimately fired her when she pursued a lawsuit against them, saying that was a violation of church doctrine. Now the Supreme Court has decided that though Perich’s religious teaching “consumed only 45 minutes of each workday,” with the rest devoted to secular education, she could be consider a “minister,” whom the school had the right under the First Amendment to fire as it saw fit. In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that requiring the school to rehire Perich “would have plainly violated the church’s freedom,” and that awarding her damages “would operate as a penalty on the church for terminating an unwanted minister.” It’s unclear exactly who counts a minister, but that could be interpreted extremely broadly — according to the Times, “Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the courts should get out of the business of trying to decide who qualifies for the ministerial exception, leaving the determination to religious groups.”
So basically, this decision could mean that a religious group could designate any employee as a minister, and thus circumvent all discrimination and other employment laws with respect to that employee.
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