[co-author: Jami Moelis*] On July 8, 2020, the Supreme Court gave religious employers wide leeway to hire and fire employees whose duties include religious instruction without having to worry about employment discrimination suits. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru that the “ministerial exception” – a legal doctrine that shields religious employers from anti-discrimination lawsuits – foreclosed the adjudication of two discrimination lawsuits brought by Catholic school teachers. In reaching its conclusion, the Supreme Court relied on its 2012 decision, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC , in which the Court unanimously held that the “ministerial exception” protected a religious school’s First Amendment right to choose its own religious teachers by exempting these institutions from anti-discrimination laws when employees are deemed “ministers.” In Hosanna-Tabor , the justices set out a loose framework for when the ministerial exception should apply, but refused to adopt any sort of rigid legal test. These factors included: whether the employer held the employee out as a minister by bestowing a formal religious title; whether the employee’s title reflected ministerial substance and training; whether the employee held herself out as a minister; and whether […]
