A gavel is displayed. Massachusetts religious college to face teacher’s suit State’s top court found job didn’t make her a ‘minister’ A Massachusetts religious college failed to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to review a state court ruling that a former teacher can sue for alleged job bias because she wasn’t a “minister,” with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. issuing a statement indicating the court may be interested in reviewing the question later in the case. The justices’ denial Monday of Gordon College’s petition for review means Margaret DeWeese-Boyd can pursue her lawsuit claiming she was denied promotion to full professor in 2016 because she is a woman and for speaking out against the college’s policies and practices regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. It leaves in place a March 5 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that rejected the Wenham-based college’s bid to quash the suit under the “ministerial exception” developed under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. The ministerial exception is a judge-created doctrine that protects the autonomy of religious organizations when deciding who serves as ministers and was previously addressed by the justices in 2012 in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC and in 2020 in Our Lady […]
