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Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru: A Broadening of the “Ministerial Exception” to Employment Discrimination in Religious Institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2021

Meghan McCarthy
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Type
Recent case developments
Information
American Journal of Law & Medicine , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 131 - 137
Copyright
© 2021 The Author(s)

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References

1 Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020).

2 Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171, 188 (2012).

3 Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2067.

4 Id. at 2069.

5 Id. at 2055.

6 Id. at 2056.

7 Id.

8 Id.

9 Morrissey-Berru was employed at OLG for “many years” as a fifth or sixth grade teacher. Id.

10 Id.

11 Id.

12 Id. at 2057.

13 Id.

14 A catechist is a teacher of religion “responsible for the faith formation of the students in their charge.” Id. (quoting Petition for Writ of Certiorari at 56a, 60a, Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. 2049 (No. 19-267)).

15 Id.

16 Id.

17 Id. at 2057-58.

18 Id. at 2058.

19 Id. Arbitrary discrimination based on age is prohibited by the Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. 29 U.S.C. § 621 (2018).

20 Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2058.

21 Id. The school claimed its new principal, April Beuder, determined Morrissey-Berru failed to implement a new reading program. Petition for Writ of Certiorari, supra note 14, at 57a-59a, 66a-67a, 70a, 73a.

22 Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2058.

23 Id.

24 Id.

25 Darryl Biel acted as Personal Representative of the Estate of Kristen Biel. Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2049.

26 Id. at 2058.

27 Id.

28 Id.

29 Id.

30 Id. In contrast to Biel, the Court noted that after filing her suit, Morrissey-Berru declared that she was not a “practicing Catholic,” a term the Court deemed unclear. Id. at 2056 n.2. The Court asserted, however, that there was no indication that Morrissey-Berru did not consider herself to be practicing the faith at the time of her employment. Id. Additionally, OLG did not make it clear whether all teachers needed to be Catholic. Id. at n.4.

31 Id. at 2058.

32 Id. at 2059.

33 Id.

34 Id.

35 Id.

36 Id.; Petition for Writ of Certiorari, supra note 14, at 85a-86a, 87a-89a, 70a, 73a.

37 About six months before her dismissal, Biel received a written evaluation from the principal praising her “very good work.” Biel v. St. James Sch., 911 F.3d 603, 606 (9th Cir. 2018), rev'd and remanded sub nom. Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020) (internal quotations omitted).

38 Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2059.

39 Id. at 2060.

40 Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012).

41 Id. at 188.

42 Id.

43 Id. at 188-89.

44 Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2055 (quoting Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in North America, 344 U.S. 94, 116 (1952)).

45 Id.

46 Id. at 2069.

47 Hosanna-Tabor, 565 U.S. at 196. Perich sued the school under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, claiming that she was terminated due to her opposition to a request to resign after a narcolepsy diagnosis. See id. at 178-79.

48 See Id. at 191-92; Justice Alito listed these four circumstances as considerations when determining the application of the ministerial exception. See also Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2062.

49 Hosanna-Tabor, 565 U.S. at 191-92.

50 Brief for Respondents at 40-43, Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020) (Nos. 19-267 & 19-348) 2020 WL 1478589.

51 Id. at 15-16.

52 Id. at 18-19.

53 Id. at 22.

54 See Morrissey-Berru, v. Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 769 F. App'x 460, 460-61 (9th Cir. 2019), rev'd and remanded, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020); Biel v. St. James Sch., 911 F.3d 603, 622 (9th Cir. 2018), rev’d and remanded sub nom.Google Scholar

55 Biel, 911 F.3d at 610.

56 Id.

57 Id. at 611 n.5.

58 Id.

59 Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2066-67.

60 Id. at 2067.

61 Id. at 2063.

62 Id. at 2064.

63 Id. at 2060.

64 Id. at 2064.

65 Id. at 2066.

66 Id.

67 Id. at 2068.

68 Id. at 2068-69. Justice Alito explained that inquiry into whether a person is of a co-religion to the institution in question impermissibly entangles the state in religious affairs. Id. Therefore, whether the individual is a member of the faith is not an appropriate consideration for the ministerial exception. See id.

69 Id. at 2068.

70 In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sotomayor emphasized that the lower courts regularly decided such ministerial cases by carefully assessing whether the “putative minister was a spiritual leade[r] within the congregation such that he or she should be considered clergy.” Id. at 2073 (quoting Rayburn v. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists) (internal quotations omitted).

71 In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, argued that the Court should not even participate in an assessment of whether an individual’s job functions are ministerial, but rather, “the Religion Clauses require civil courts to defer to religious organizations’ good faith claims that a certain employee’s position is ministerial.” Id. at 2069-70 (internal quotations omitted).

72 See Brief for Respondents at 32-35.

73 Id.

74 Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch., 140 S. Ct. at 2072.

75 Id.

76 Id. at 2072-73.