(CNS file photo/Nancy Phelan Wiechec) In two cases now before the Supreme Court, the justices are dealing with the constitutional status of a “minister” at a religious school and with the question of who decides the qualifications of a minister: churches and religious schools, or the federal courts. The cases set for oral argument on May 11 are Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel . In Hosanna-Tabor (2012), a teacher at a Lutheran elementary school was diagnosed and subsequently fired for having narcolepsy. Suing under the Americans With Disability Act, she claimed that the school had illegally discriminated against her on account of her condition. When the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) upheld her suit, she appealed. The school claimed a Free Exercise “ministerial exemption” from employment laws, and the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the school. The fourth-grade teacher was a trained and certified instructor of religion, which she taught everyday in addition to academic subjects. Six noteworthy elements and consequences of the decision: First, the Supreme Court had never before recognized a ministerial exception, although lower federal courts had previously done so. Second, it did not overturn and so ruled despite […]
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