internal church disputes
Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC
132 S.Ct. 694 (2012)
Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Certain employment discrimination laws authorize employees who have been wrongfully terminated to sue their employers for reinstatement and damages. The question presented is whether the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment bar such an action when the employer is a religious group and the employee is one of the group’s ministers.
I
A
Hosanna–Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School is a member congregation of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, the second largest Lutheran denomination in America. Hosanna–Tabor operated a small school in Redford, Michigan, offering a “Christ-centered education” to students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
The Synod classifies teachers into two categories: “called” and “lay.” “Called” teachers are regarded as having been called to their vocation by God through a congregation. To be eligible to receive a call from a congregation, a teacher must satisfy certain academic requirements. One way of doing so is by completing a “colloquy” program at a Lutheran college or university. The program requires candidates to take eight courses of theological study, obtain the endorsement of their local Synod district, and pass an oral examination by a faculty committee. A teacher who meets these requirements may be called by a congregation. Once called, a teacher receives the formal title “Minister of Religion, Commissioned.” A commissioned minister serves for an open-ended term; at Hosanna–Tabor, a call could be rescinded only for cause and by a supermajority vote of the congregation.
“Lay” or “contract” teachers, by contrast, are not required to be trained by the Synod or even to be Lutheran.
Cheryl Perich was first employed by Hosanna–Tabor as a lay teacher in 1999. After Perich completed her colloquy later that school year, Hosanna–Tabor asked her to become a called teacher. Perich accepted the call and received a “diploma of vocation” designating her a commissioned minister.
Perich taught kindergarten and fourth grade. . . . She taught math, language arts, social studies, science, gym, art, and music. She also taught a religion class four days a week, led the students in prayer and devotional exercises each day, and attended a weekly school-wide chapel service. Perich led the chapel service herself about twice a year.
Perich became ill in June 2004 with what was eventually diagnosed as narcolepsy. Because of her illness, Perich began the 2004–2005 school year on disability leave. On January 27, 2005, however, Perich notified the school principal, Stacey Hoeft, that she would be able to report to work the following month. Hoeft responded that the school had already contracted with a lay teacher to fill Perich’s position for the remainder of the school year. Hoeft also expressed concern that Perich was not yet ready to return to the classroom.
On January 30, Hosanna–Tabor held a meeting of its congregation at which school administrators stated that Perich was unlikely to be physically capable of returning to work that school year or the next. The congregation voted to offer Perich a “peaceful release” from her call, whereby the congregation would pay a portion of her health insurance premiums in exchange for her resignation as a called teacher. Perich refused to resign and produced a note from her doctor stating that she would be able to return to work on February 22. The school board urged Perich to reconsider, informing her that the school no longer had a position for her, but Perich stood by her decision not to resign.
On the morning of February 22—the first day she was medically cleared to return to work—Perich presented herself at the school. Hoeft asked her to leave but she would not do so until she obtained written documentation that she had reported to work. Later that afternoon, Hoeft called Perich at home and told her that she would likely be fired. Perich responded that she had spoken with an attorney and intended to assert her legal rights.
[T]hat evening, board chairman Scott Salo sent Perich a letter stating that Hosanna–Tabor was reviewing the process for rescinding her call in light of her “regrettable” actions. As grounds for termination, the letter cited Perich’s “insubordination and disruptive behavior” on February 22, as well as the damage she had done to her “working relationship” with the school by “threatening to take legal action.” The congregation voted to rescind Perich’s call on April 10, and Hosanna–Tabor sent her a letter of termination the next day.
B
Perich filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that her employment had been terminated in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990). The ADA prohibits an employer from discriminating against a qualified individual on the basis of disability. It also prohibits an employer from retaliating “against any individual because such individual has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by [the ADA] or because such individual made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under [the ADA].”
The EEOC brought suit against Hosanna–Tabor, alleging that Perich had been fired in retaliation for threatening to file an ADA lawsuit. Perich intervened in the litigation, claiming unlawful retaliation under both the ADA and the Michigan Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act (1979). The EEOC and Perich sought Perich’s reinstatement to her former position (or frontpay in lieu thereof), along with backpay, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and other injunctive relief.
[Hosanna-Tabor argued that Perich’s suit was barred under what is known as the ‘ministerial exception’ because the claims at issue concerned the employment relationship between a religious institution and one of its ministers. According to the Church, Perich was a minister, and she had been fired for a religious reason—namely, that her threat to sue the Church violated the Synod’s belief that Christians should resolve their disputes internally. The Church prevailed at trial but lost on appeal. The Church then appealed to the Supreme Court”].
II
The First Amendment provides, in part, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” We have said that these two Clauses “often exert conflicting pressures,” and that there can be “internal tension ... between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.” Not so here. Both Religion Clauses bar the government from interfering with the decision of a religious group to fire one of its ministers.
A
Controversy between church and state over religious offices is hardly new. In 1215, the issue was addressed in the very first clause of Magna Carta. There, King John agreed that “the English church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired.” The King in particular accepted the “freedom of elections,” a right “thought to be of the greatest necessity and importance to the English church.”
That freedom in many cases may have been more theoretical than real. In any event, it did not survive the reign of Henry VIII, even in theory. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 made the English monarch the supreme head of the Church, and the Act in Restraint of Annates passed that same year, gave him the authority to appoint the Church’s high officials.
Seeking to escape the control of the national church, the Puritans fled to New England, where they hoped to elect their own ministers and establish their own modes of worship. . . . William Penn, the Quaker proprietor of what would eventually become Pennsylvania and Delaware, also sought independence from the Church of England. The charter creating the province of Pennsylvania contained no clause establishing a religion. . . .
Colonists in the South, in contrast, brought the Church of England with them. But even they sometimes chafed at the control exercised by the Crown and its representatives over religious offices. In Virginia, for example, the law vested the governor with the power to induct ministers presented to him by parish vestries . . . but the vestries often refused to make such presentations and instead chose ministers on their own. . . . Controversies over the selection of ministers also arose in other Colonies with Anglican establishments, including North Carolina. . . . There, the royal governor insisted that the right of presentation lay with the Bishop of London, but the colonial assembly enacted laws placing that right in the vestries. Authorities in England intervened, repealing those laws as inconsistent with the rights of the Crown.
It was against this background that the First Amendment was adopted. Familiar with life under the established Church of England, the founding generation sought to foreclose the possibility of a national church. By forbidding the “establishment of religion” and guaranteeing the “free exercise thereof,” the Religion Clauses ensured that the new Federal Government—unlike the English Crown—would have no role in filling ecclesiastical offices. The Establishment Clause prevents the Government from appointing ministers, and the Free Exercise Clause prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own.
This understanding of the Religion Clauses was reflected in two events involving James Madison, “‘the leading architect of the religion clauses of the First Amendment.’” . . . The first occurred in 1806, when John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, solicited the Executive’s opinion on who should be appointed to direct the affairs of the Catholic Church in the territory newly acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. After consulting with President Jefferson, then-Secretary of State Madison responded that the selection of church “functionaries” was an “entirely ecclesiastical” matter left to the Church’s own judgment. . . . The “scrupulous policy of the Constitution in guarding against a political interference with religious affairs,” Madison explained, prevented the Government from rendering an opinion on the “selection of ecclesiastical individuals.”
B
Given this understanding of the Religion Clauses—and the absence of government employment regulation generally—it was some time before questions about government interference with a church’s ability to select its own ministers came before the courts. This Court touched upon the issue indirectly, however, in the context of disputes over church property. Our decisions in that area confirm that it is impermissible for the government to contradict a church’s determination of who can act as its ministers.
In Watson v. Jones [in 1872] . . .the Court considered a dispute between antislavery and proslavery factions over who controlled the property of the Walnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church had recognized the antislavery faction, and this Court—applying not the Constitution but a “broad and sound view of the relations of church and state under our system of laws”—declined to question that determination. We explained that “whenever the questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have been decided by the highest of [the] church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them.” As we would put it later, our opinion in Watson “radiates ... a spirit of freedom for religious organizations, an independence from secular control or manipulation—in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.”
Confronting the issue under the Constitution for the first time in Kedroff, the Court recognized that the “[f]reedom to select the clergy, where no improper methods of choice are proven,” is “part of the free exercise of religion” protected by the First Amendment against government interference.
This Court reaffirmed these First Amendment principles in Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for United States and Canada v. Milivojevich, a case involving a dispute over control of the American–Canadian Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, including its property and assets. The Church had removed Dionisije Milivojevich as bishop of the American–Canadian Diocese because of his defiance of the church hierarchy. . . .
[T]his Court explained that the First Amendment “permit[s] hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters.” When ecclesiastical tribunals decide such disputes, we further explained, “the Constitution requires that civil courts accept their decisions as binding upon them.” . . .
C
Until today, we have not had occasion to consider whether this freedom of a religious organization to select its ministers is implicated by a suit alleging discrimination in employment. The Courts of Appeals, in contrast, . . . have uniformly recognized the existence of a “ministerial exception,” grounded in the First Amendment, that precludes application of such legislation to claims concerning the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers.
We agree that there is such a ministerial exception. The members of a religious group put their faith in the hands of their ministers. Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions.
The EEOC and Perich acknowledge that employment discrimination laws would be unconstitutional as applied to religious groups in certain circumstances. They grant, for example, that it would violate the First Amendment for courts to apply such laws to compel the ordination of women by the Catholic Church or by an Orthodox Jewish seminary. According to the EEOC and Perich, religious organizations could successfully defend against employment discrimination claims in those circumstances by invoking the constitutional right to freedom of association—a right “implicit” in the First Amendment. The EEOC and Perich thus see no need—and no basis—for a special rule for ministers grounded in the Religion Clauses themselves.
We find this position untenable. The right to freedom of association is a right enjoyed by religious and secular groups alike. It follows under the EEOC’s and Perich’s view that the First Amendment analysis should be the same, whether the association in question is the Lutheran Church, a labor union, or a social club. That result is hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations. We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.
III
Having concluded that there is a ministerial exception grounded in the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, we consider whether the exception applies in this case. We hold that it does.
Every Court of Appeals to have considered the question has concluded that the ministerial exception is not limited to the head of a religious congregation, and we agree. We are reluctant, however, to adopt a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister. It is enough for us to conclude, in this our first case involving the ministerial exception, that the exception covers Perich, given all the circumstances of her employment.
To begin with, Hosanna–Tabor held Perich out as a minister, with a role distinct from that of most of its members. When Hosanna–Tabor extended her a call, it issued her a “diploma of vocation” according her the title “Minister of Religion, Commissioned.” She was tasked with performing that office “according to the Word of God and the confessional standards of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as drawn from the Sacred Scriptures.” The congregation prayed that God “bless [her] ministrations to the glory of His holy name, [and] the building of His church.” In a supplement to the diploma, the congregation undertook to periodically review Perich’s “skills of ministry” and “ministerial responsibilities,” and to provide for her “continuing education as a professional person in the ministry of the Gospel.”
Perich’s title as a minister reflected a significant degree of religious training followed by a formal process of commissioning. To be eligible to become a commissioned minister, Perich had to complete eight college-level courses in subjects including biblical interpretation, church doctrine, and the ministry of the Lutheran teacher. She also had to obtain the endorsement of her local Synod district by submitting a petition that contained her academic transcripts, letters of recommendation, personal statement, and written answers to various ministry-related questions. Finally, she had to pass an oral examination by a faculty committee at a Lutheran college. It took Perich six years to fulfill these requirements. And when she eventually did, she was commissioned as a minister only upon election by the congregation, which recognized God’s call to her to teach. At that point, her call could be rescinded only upon a supermajority vote of the congregation—a protection designed to allow her to “preach the Word of God boldly.”
Perich held herself out as a minister of the Church by accepting the formal call to religious service, according to its terms. She did so in other ways as well. For example, she claimed a special housing allowance on her taxes that was available only to employees earning their compensation “‘in the exercise of the ministry.’”
Perich’s job duties reflected a role in conveying the Church’s message and carrying out its mission. Hosanna–Tabor expressly charged her with “lead[ing] others toward Christian maturity” and “teach[ing] faithfully the Word of God, the Sacred Scriptures, in its truth and purity and as set forth in all the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.” In fulfilling these responsibilities, Perich taught her students religion four days a week, and led them in prayer three times a day. Once a week, she took her students to a school-wide chapel service, and—about twice a year—she took her turn leading it, choosing the liturgy, selecting the hymns, and delivering a short message based on verses from the Bible. During her last year of teaching, Perich also led her fourth graders in a brief devotional exercise each morning. As a source of religious instruction, Perich performed an important role in transmitting the Lutheran faith to the next generation.
In light of these considerations—the formal title given Perich by the Church, the substance reflected in that title, her own use of that title, and the important religious functions she performed for the Church—we conclude that Perich was a minister covered by the ministerial exception.
Because Perich was a minister within the meaning of the exception, the First Amendment requires dismissal of this employment discrimination suit against her religious employer. The EEOC and Perich originally sought an order reinstating Perich to her former position as a called teacher. By requiring the Church to accept a minister it did not want, such an order would have plainly violated the Church’s freedom under the Religion Clauses to select its own ministers.
The purpose of the exception is not to safeguard a church’s decision to fire a minister only when it is made for a religious reason. The exception instead ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful—a matter “strictly ecclesiastical,” Kedroff—is the church’s alone.
IV
The EEOC and Perich foresee a parade of horribles that will follow our recognition of a ministerial exception to employment discrimination suits. According to the EEOC and Perich, such an exception could protect religious organizations from liability for retaliating against employees for reporting criminal misconduct or for testifying before a grand jury or in a criminal trial. What is more, the EEOC contends, the logic of the exception would confer on religious employers “unfettered discretion” to violate employment laws by, for example, hiring children or aliens not authorized to work in the United States.
The case before us is an employment discrimination suit brought on behalf of a minister, challenging her church’s decision to fire her. Today we hold only that the ministerial exception bars such a suit. We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tortious conduct by their religious employers. There will be time enough to address the applicability of the exception to other circumstances if and when they arise. . . .
The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission. When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.
Justice ALITO, with whom Justice KAGAN joins, concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion, but I write separately to clarify my understanding of the significance of formal ordination and designation as a “minister” in determining whether an “employee” of a religious group falls within the so-called “ministerial” exception. The term “minister” is commonly used by many Protestant denominations to refer to members of their clergy, but the term is rarely if ever used in this way by Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists. In addition, the concept of ordination as understood by most Christian churches and by Judaism has no clear counterpart in some Christian denominations and some other religions. Because virtually every religion in the world is represented in the population of the United States, it would be a mistake if the term “minister” or the concept of ordination were viewed as central to the important issue of religious autonomy that is presented in cases like this one. Instead, courts should focus on the function performed by persons who work for religious bodies.
The First Amendment protects the freedom of religious groups to engage in certain key religious activities, including the conducting of worship services and other religious ceremonies and rituals, as well as the critical process of communicating the faith. Accordingly, religious groups must be free to choose the personnel who are essential to the performance of these functions.
The “ministerial” exception should be tailored to this purpose. It should apply to any “employee” who leads a religious organization, conducts worship services or important religious ceremonies or rituals, or serves as a messenger or teacher of its faith. If a religious group believes that the ability of such an employee to perform these key functions has been compromised, then the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom protects the group’s right to remove the employee from his or her position.
I
Throughout our Nation’s history, religious bodies have been the preeminent example of private associations that have “act[ed] as critical buffers between the individual and the power of the State.” In a case like the one now before us—where the goal of the civil law in question, the elimination of discrimination against persons with disabilities, is so worthy—it is easy to forget that the autonomy of religious groups, both here in the United States and abroad, has often served as a shield against oppressive civil laws. To safeguard this crucial autonomy, we have long recognized that the Religion Clauses protect a private sphere within which religious bodies are free to govern themselves in accordance with their own beliefs. The Constitution guarantees religious bodies “independence from secular control or manipulation—in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.”
Religious autonomy means that religious authorities must be free to determine who is qualified to serve in positions of substantial religious importance. Different religions will have different views on exactly what qualifies as an important religious position, but it is nonetheless possible to identify a general category of “employees” whose functions are essential to the independence of practically all religious groups. These include those who serve in positions of leadership, those who perform important functions in worship services and in the performance of religious ceremonies and rituals, and those who are entrusted with teaching and conveying the tenets of the faith to the next generation.
Applying the protection of the First Amendment to roles of religious leadership, worship, ritual, and expression focuses on the objective functions that are important for the autonomy of any religious group, regardless of its beliefs. As we have recognized in a similar context [in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale], “[f]orcing a group to accept certain members may impair [its ability] to express those views, and only those views, that it intends to express.” That principle applies with special force with respect to religious groups, whose very existence is dedicated to the collective expression and propagation of shared religious ideals. See Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith (noting that the constitutional interest in freedom of association may be “reinforced by Free Exercise Clause concerns”). As the Court notes, the First Amendment “gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations,” but our expressive-association cases are nevertheless useful in pointing out what those essential rights are. Religious groups are the archetype of associations formed for expressive purposes, and their fundamental rights surely include the freedom to choose who is qualified to serve as a voice for their faith.
When it comes to the expression and inculcation of religious doctrine, there can be no doubt that the messenger matters. Religious teachings cover the gamut from moral conduct to metaphysical truth, and both the content and credibility of a religion’s message depend vitally on the character and conduct of its teachers. A religion cannot depend on someone to be an effective advocate for its religious vision if that person’s conduct fails to live up to the religious precepts that he or she espouses. For this reason, a religious body’s right to self-governance must include the ability to select, and to be selective about, those who will serve as the very “embodiment of its message” and “its voice to the faithful.” A religious body’s control over such “employees” is an essential component of its freedom to speak in its own voice, both to its own members and to the outside world.
The connection between church governance and the free dissemination of religious doctrine has deep roots in our legal tradition [as we noted in Watson v. Jones]:
The right to organize voluntary religious associations to assist in the expression and dissemination of any religious doctrine, and to create tribunals for the decision of controverted questions of faith within the association, and for the ecclesiastical government of all the individual members, congregations, and officers within the general association, is unquestioned. All who unite themselves to such a body do so with an implied consent to this government, and are bound to submit to it. But it would be a vain consent and would lead to the total subversion of such religious bodies, if any one aggrieved by one of their decisions could appeal to the secular courts and have them reversed.
The “ministerial” exception gives concrete protection to the free “expression and dissemination of any religious doctrine.” The Constitution leaves it to the collective conscience of each religious group to determine for itself who is qualified to serve as a teacher or messenger of its faith.
II
A
The Court’s opinion today holds that the “ministerial” exception applies to Cheryl Perich (hereinafter respondent), who is regarded by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod as a commissioned minister. But while a ministerial title is undoubtedly relevant in applying the First Amendment rule at issue, such a title is neither necessary nor sufficient. As previously noted, most faiths do not employ the term “minister,” and some eschew the concept of formal ordination. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, some faiths consider the ministry to consist of all or a very large percentage of their members. Perhaps this explains why, although every circuit to consider the issue has recognized the “ministerial” exception, no circuit has made ordination status or formal title determinative of the exception’s applicability.
The Fourth Circuit was the first to use the term “ministerial exception,” but in doing so it took pains to clarify that the label was a mere shorthand. The Fourth Circuit traced the exception back to McClure v. Salvation Army, which invoked the Religion Clauses to bar a Title VII sex-discrimination suit brought by a woman who was described by the court as a Salvation Army “minister,” although her actual title was “officer.” A decade after McClure, the Fifth Circuit made clear that formal ordination was not necessary for the “ministerial” exception to apply. The court held that the members of the faculty at a Baptist seminary were covered by the exception because of their religious function in conveying church doctrine, even though some of them were not ordained ministers.
The functional consensus has held up over time, with the D. C. Circuit recognizing that “[t]he ministerial exception has not been limited to members of the clergy.” The court in that case rejected a Title VII suit brought by a Catholic nun who claimed that the Catholic University of America had denied her tenure for a canon-law teaching position because of her gender. The court noted that “members of the Canon Law Faculty perform the vital function of instructing those who will in turn interpret, implement, and teach the law governing the Roman Catholic Church and the administration of its sacraments. Although Sister McDonough is not a priest, she is a member of a religious order who sought a tenured professorship in a field that is of fundamental importance to the spiritual mission of her Church.”
The Ninth Circuit too has taken a functional approach, just recently reaffirming that “the ministerial exception encompasses more than a church’s ordained ministers.” The Court’s opinion today should not be read to upset this consensus.
B
The ministerial exception applies to respondent because, as the Court notes, she played a substantial role in “conveying the Church’s message and carrying out its mission.” She taught religion to her students four days a week and took them to chapel on the fifth day. She led them in daily devotional exercises, and led them in prayer three times a day. She also alternated with the other teachers in planning and leading worship services at the school chapel, choosing liturgies, hymns, and readings, and composing and delivering a message based on Scripture.
It makes no difference that respondent also taught secular subjects. While a purely secular teacher would not qualify for the “ministerial” exception, the constitutional protection of religious teachers is not somehow diminished when they take on secular functions in addition to their religious ones. What matters is that respondent played an important role as an instrument of her church’s religious message and as a leader of its worship activities. Because of these important religious functions, Hosanna-Tabor had the right to decide for itself whether respondent was religiously qualified to remain in her office.
Hosanna-Tabor discharged respondent because she threatened to file suit against the church in a civil court. This threat contravened the Lutheran doctrine that disputes among Christians should be resolved internally without resort to the civil court system and all the legal wrangling it entails. In Hosanna-Tabor’s view, respondent’s disregard for this doctrine compromised her religious function, disqualifying her from serving effectively as a voice for the church’s faith. Respondent does not dispute that the Lutheran Church subscribes to a doctrine of internal dispute resolution, but she argues that this was a mere pretext for her firing, which was really done for nonreligious reasons.
For civil courts to engage in the pretext inquiry that respondent and the Solicitor General urge us to sanction would dangerously undermine the religious autonomy that lower court case law has now protected for nearly four decades. In order to probe the real reason for respondent’s firing, a civil court—and perhaps a jury—would be required to make a judgment about church doctrine. The credibility of Hosanna-Tabor’s asserted reason for terminating respondent’s employment could not be assessed without taking into account both the importance that the Lutheran Church attaches to the doctrine of internal dispute resolution and the degree to which that tenet compromised respondent’s religious function. If it could be shown that this belief is an obscure and minor part of Lutheran doctrine, it would be much more plausible for respondent to argue that this doctrine was not the real reason for her firing. If, on the other hand, the doctrine is a central and universally known tenet of Lutheranism, then the church’s asserted reason for her discharge would seem much more likely to be nonpretextual. But whatever the truth of the matter might be, the mere adjudication of such questions would pose grave problems for religious autonomy: It would require calling witnesses to testify about the importance and priority of the religious doctrine in question, with a civil factfinder sitting in ultimate judgment of what the accused church really believes, and how important that belief is to the church’s overall mission.
At oral argument, both respondent and the United States acknowledged that a pretext inquiry would sometimes be prohibited by principles of religious autonomy, and both conceded that a Roman Catholic priest who is dismissed for getting married could not sue the church and claim that his dismissal was actually based on a ground forbidden by the federal antidiscrimination laws. But there is no principled basis for proscribing a pretext inquiry in such a case while permitting it in a case like the one now before us. The Roman Catholic Church’s insistence on clerical celibacy may be much better known than the Lutheran Church’s doctrine of internal dispute resolution, but popular familiarity with a religious doctrine cannot be the determinative factor.
What matters in the present case is that Hosanna-Tabor believes that the religious function that respondent performed made it essential that she abide by the doctrine of internal dispute resolution; and the civil courts are in no position to second-guess that assessment. This conclusion rests not on respondent’s ordination status or her formal title, but rather on her functional status as the type of employee that a church must be free to appoint or dismiss in order to exercise the religious liberty that the First Amendment guarantees.
Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru
140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020)
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases require us to decide whether the First Amendment permits courts to intervene in employment disputes involving teachers at religious schools who are entrusted with the responsibility of instructing their students in the faith. The First Amendment protects the right of religious institutions “to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.” Applying this principle, we held in Hosanna-Tabor that the First Amendment barred a court from entertaining an employment discrimination claim brought by an elementary school teacher, Cheryl Perich, against the religious school where she taught. Our decision built on a line of lower court cases adopting what was dubbed the “ministerial exception” to laws governing the employment relationship between a religious institution and certain key employees. We did not announce “a rigid formula” for determining whether an employee falls within this exception, but we identified circumstances that we found relevant in that case, including Perich’s title as a “Minister of Religion, Commissioned,” her educational training, and her responsibility to teach religion and participate with students in religious activities.
In the cases now before us, we consider employment discrimination claims brought by two elementary school teachers at Catholic schools whose teaching responsibilities are similar to Perich’s. Although these teachers were not given the title of “minister” and have less religious training than Perich, we hold that their cases fall within the same rule that dictated our decision in Hosanna-Tabor. The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission. Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate.
I
A
1
The first of the two cases we now decide involves Agnes Morrissey-Berru, who was employed at Our Lady of Guadalupe School (OLG), a Roman Catholic primary school in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For many years, Morrissey-Berru was employed at OLG as a lay fifth or sixth grade teacher. Like most elementary school teachers, she taught all subjects, and since OLG is a Catholic school, the curriculum included religion. As a result, she was her students’ religion teacher.
Morrissey-Berru earned a B. A. in English Language Arts, with a minor in secondary education, and she holds a California teaching credential. While on the faculty at OLG, she took religious education courses at the school’s request and was expected to attend faculty prayer services.
Each year, Morrissey-Berru and OLG entered into an employment agreement that set out the school’s “mission” and Morrissey-Berru’s duties. The agreement stated that the school’s mission was “to develop and promote a Catholic School Faith Community” and it informed Morrissey-Berru that “[a]ll [her] duties and responsibilities as a Teache[r were to] be performed within this overriding commitment.” The agreement explained that the school’s hiring and retention decisions would be guided by its Catholic mission, and the agreement made clear that teachers were expected to “model and promote” Catholic “faith and morals.” Under the agreement, Morrissey-Berru was required to participate in “[s]chool liturgical activities, as requested” and the agreement specified that she could be terminated “for ‘cause’” for failing to carry out these duties or for “conduct that brings discredit upon the School or the Roman Catholic Church.” The agreement required compliance with the faculty handbook, which sets out similar expectations. The pastor of the parish, a Catholic priest, had to approve Morrissey-Berru’s hiring each year.
Like all teachers in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Morrissey-Berru was “considered a catechist,” i.e., “a teacher of religio[n].” Catechists are “responsible for the faith formation of the students in their charge each day.” Morrissey-Berru provided religious instruction every day using a textbook designed for use in teaching religion to young Catholic students. Under the prescribed curriculum, she was expected to teach students, among other things, “to learn and express belief that Jesus is the son of God and the Word made flesh”; to “identify the ways” the church “carries on the mission of Jesus”; to “locate, read and understand stories from the Bible”; to “know the names, meanings, signs and symbols of each of the seven sacraments”; and to be able to “explain the communion of saints.” She tested her students on that curriculum in a yearly exam. She also directed and produced an annual passion play.
Morrissey-Berru prepared her students for participation in the Mass and for communion and confession. She also occasionally selected and prepared students to read at Mass. And she was expected to take her students to Mass once a week and on certain feast days (such as the Feast Day of St. Juan Diego, All Saints Day, and the Feast of Our Lady), and to take them to confession and to pray the Stations of the Cross. Each year, she brought them to the Catholic Cathedral in Los Angeles, where they participated as altar servers. This visit, she explained, was “an important experience” because “[i]t is a big honor” for children to “serve the altar” at the cathedral.
Morrissey-Berru also prayed with her students. Her class began or ended every day with a Hail Mary. She led the students in prayer at other times, such as when a family member was ill. And she taught them to recite the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed, as well as prayers for specific purposes, such as in connection with the sacrament of confession.
The school reviewed Morrissey-Berru’s performance under religious standards. The “Classroom Observation Report” evaluated whether Catholic values were “infused through all subject areas” and whether there were religious signs and displays in the classroom. Morrissey-Berru testified that she tried to instruct her students “in a manner consistent with the teachings of the Church,” and she said that she was “committed to teaching children Catholic values” and providing a “faith-based education.” And the school principal confirmed that Morrissey-Berru was expected to do these things.
2
In 2014, OLG asked Morrissey-Berru to move from a full-time to a part-time position, and the next year, the school declined to renew her contract. She filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), received a right-to-sue letter, and then filed suit under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, claiming that the school had demoted her and had failed to renew her contract so that it could replace her with a younger teacher. The school maintains that it based its decisions on classroom performance—specifically, Morrissey-Berru’s difficulty in administering a new reading and writing program, which had been introduced by the school’s new principal as part of an effort to maintain accreditation and improve the school’s academic program.
Invoking the “ministerial exception” that we recognized in Hosanna-Tabor, OLG successfully moved for summary judgment, but the Ninth Circuit reversed in a brief opinion. The court acknowledged that Morrissey-Berru had “significant religious responsibilities” but reasoned that “an employee’s duties alone are not dispositive under Hosanna-Tabor’s framework.” Unlike Perich, the court noted, Morrissey-Berru did not have the formal title of “minister,” had limited formal religious training, and “did not hold herself out to the public as a religious leader or minister.” In the court’s view, these “factors” outweighed the fact that she was invested with significant religious responsibilities. The court therefore held that Morrissey-Berru did not fall within the “ministerial exception.” OLG filed a petition for certiorari, and we granted review.
B
The second case concerns the late Kristen Biel, who worked for about a year and a half as a lay teacher at St. James School, another Catholic primary school in Los Angeles. [Justice Alito recounted the facts surrounding Biel and the procedural history of that case, including that Biel had served part of one academic year as a long-term substitute teacher for a first grade class, and for one full year she was a full-time fifth grade teacher. Like Morrissey-Berru, she taught all subjects, including religion. Biel was Catholic, and her “employment agreement was in pertinent part nearly identical to Morrissey-Berru’s.” Justice Alito noted other substantial similarities between the two cases, and the Court consolidated Biel’s case with Morrissey-Berru’s.]
II
A
The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Among other things, the Religion Clauses protect the right of churches and other religious institutions to decide matters “of faith and doctrine” without government intrusion. State interference in that sphere would obviously violate the free exercise of religion, and any attempt by government to dictate or even to influence such matters would constitute one of the central attributes of an establishment of religion. The First Amendment outlaws such intrusion.
The independence of religious institutions in matters of “faith and doctrine” is closely linked to independence in what we have termed “matters of church government.” This does not mean that religious institutions enjoy a general immunity from secular laws, but it does protect their autonomy with respect to internal management decisions that are essential to the institution’s central mission. And a component of this autonomy is the selection of the individuals who play certain key roles.
The “ministerial exception” was based on this insight. Under this rule, courts are bound to stay out of employment disputes involving those holding certain important positions with churches and other religious institutions. The rule appears to have acquired the label “ministerial exception” because the individuals involved in pioneering cases were described as “ministers.” Not all pre-Hosanna-Tabor decisions applying the exception involved “ministers” or even members of the clergy. But it is instructive to consider why a church’s independence on matters “of faith and doctrine” requires the authority to select, supervise, and if necessary, remove a minister without interference by secular authorities. Without that power, a wayward minister’s preaching, teaching, and counseling could contradict the church’s tenets and lead the congregation away from the faith. The ministerial exception was recognized to preserve a church’s independent authority in such matters.
B
When the so-called ministerial exception finally reached this Court in Hosanna-Tabor, we unanimously recognized that the Religion Clauses foreclose certain employment discrimination claims brought against religious organizations. The constitutional foundation for our holding was the general principle of church autonomy to which we have already referred: independence in matters of faith and doctrine and in closely linked matters of internal government. The three prior decisions on which we primarily relied drew on this broad principle, and none was exclusively concerned with the selection or supervision of clergy.
In addition to these precedents, we looked to the “background” against which “the First Amendment was adopted.” We noted that 16th-century British statutes had given the Crown the power to fill high “religious offices” and to control the exercise of religion in other ways, and we explained that the founding generation sought to prevent a repetition of these practices in our country. Because Cheryl Perich, the teacher in Hosanna-Tabor, had a title that included the word “minister,” we naturally concentrated on historical events involving clerical offices, but the abuses we identified were not limited to the control of appointments.
We pointed to the various Acts of Uniformity, which dictated what ministers could preach and imposed penalties for non-compliance. Under the 1549 Act, a minister who “preach[ed,] declare[d,] or [spoke] any thing” in derogation of any part of the Book of Common Prayer could be sentenced to six months in jail for a first offense and life imprisonment for a third violation. In addition, all other English subjects were forbidden to say anything against the Book of Common Prayer in “interludes, plays, songs, rhymes, or by other open words.” A 1559 law contained similar prohibitions.
After the Restoration, Parliament enacted a new law with a similar aim. Ministers and “Lecturer[s]” were required to pledge “unfeigned assent and consent” to the Book of Common Prayer, and all schoolmasters, private tutors, and university professors were required to “conforme to the Liturgy of the Church of England” and not “to endeavour any change or alteration” of the church.
British law continued to impose religious restrictions on education in the 18th century and past the time of the adoption of the First Amendment. The Schism or Established Church Act of 1714 required that schoolmasters and tutors be licensed by a bishop. Non-conforming Protestants, as well as Catholics and Jews, could not teach at or attend the two universities, and as Blackstone wrote, “[p]ersons professing the popish religion [could] not keep or teach any school under pain of perpetual imprisonment.” The law also imposed penalties on “any person [who] sen[t] another abroad to be educated in the popish religion ... or [who] contribute[d] to their maintenance when there.”
British colonies in North America similarly controlled both the appointment of clergy and the teaching of students. A Maryland law “prohibited any Catholic priest or lay person from keeping school, or taking upon himself the education of youth.” In 1771, the Governor of New York was instructed to require that all schoolmasters arriving from England obtain a license from the Bishop of London. New York law also required an oath and license for any “vagrant Preacher, Moravian, or disguised Papist” to “Preach or Teach, Either in Public or Private.”
C
In Hosanna-Tabor, Cheryl Perich, a kindergarten and fourth grade teacher at an Evangelical Lutheran school, filed suit in federal court, claiming that she had been discharged because of a disability, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The school responded that the real reason for her dismissal was her violation of the Lutheran doctrine that disputes should be resolved internally and not by going to outside authorities. We held that her suit was barred by the “ministerial exception” and noted that it “concern[ed] government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church.” We declined “to adopt a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister,” and we added that it was “enough for us to conclude, in this our first case involving the ministerial exception, that the exception covers Perich, given all the circumstances of her employment.” We identified four relevant circumstances but did not highlight any as essential.
First, we noted that her church had given Perich the title of “minister, with a role distinct from that of most of its members.” Although she was not a minister in the usual sense of the term—she was not a pastor or deacon, did not lead a congregation, and did not regularly conduct religious services—she was classified as a “called” teacher, as opposed to a lay teacher, and after completing certain academic requirements, was given the formal title “Minister of Religion, Commissioned.”
Second, Perich’s position “reflected a significant degree of religious training followed by a formal process of commissioning.”
Third, “Perich held herself out as a minister of the Church by accepting the formal call to religious service, according to its terms,” and by claiming certain tax benefits.
Fourth, “Perich’s job duties reflected a role in conveying the Church’s message and carrying out its mission.” The church charged her with “lead[ing] others toward Christian maturity” and “teach[ing] faithfully the Word of God, the Sacred Scriptures, in its truth and purity and as set forth in all the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.” Although Perich also provided instruction in secular subjects, she taught religion four days a week, led her students in prayer three times a day, took her students to a chapel service once a week, and participated in the liturgy twice a year. “As a source of religious instruction,” we explained, “Perich performed an important role in transmitting the Lutheran faith to the next generation.”
The case featured two concurrences. In the first, Justice Thomas stressed that courts should “defer to a religious organization’s good-faith understanding of who qualifies as its minister.” That is so, Justice Thomas explained, because “[a] religious organization’s right to choose its ministers would be hollow . . . if secular courts could second-guess” the group’s sincere application of its religious tenets.
The second concurrence argued that application of the “ministerial exception” should “focus on the function performed by persons who work for religious bodies” rather than labels or designations that may vary across faiths. This opinion viewed the title of “minister” as “relevant” but “neither necessary nor sufficient.” It noted that “most faiths do not employ the term ‘minister’” and that some “consider the ministry to consist of all or a very large percentage of their members.” The opinion concluded that the “‘ministerial’ exception” “should apply to any ‘employee’ who leads a religious organization, conducts worship services or important religious ceremonies or rituals, or serves as a messenger or teacher of its faith.”
D
1
In determining whether a particular position falls within the Hosanna-Tabor exception, a variety of factors may be important. [Footnote 10: “In considering the circumstances of any case, courts must take care to avoid ‘resolving underlying controversies over religious doctrine.’”] The circumstances that informed our decision in Hosanna-Tabor were relevant because of their relationship to Perich’s “role in conveying the Church’s message and carrying out its mission,” but the other noted circumstances also shed light on that connection. In a denomination that uses the term “minister,” conferring that title naturally suggests that the recipient has been given an important position of trust. In Perich’s case, the title that she was awarded and used demanded satisfaction of significant academic requirements and was conferred only after a formal approval process, and those circumstances also evidenced the importance attached to her role. But our recognition of the significance of those factors in Perich’s case did not mean that they must be met—or even that they are necessarily important—in all other cases.
Take the question of the title “minister.” Simply giving an employee the title of “minister” is not enough to justify the exception. And by the same token, since many religious traditions do not use the title “minister,” it cannot be a necessary requirement. Requiring the use of the title would constitute impermissible discrimination, and this problem cannot be solved simply by including positions that are thought to be the counterparts of a “minister,” such as priests, nuns, rabbis, and imams. Nuns are not the same as Protestant ministers. A brief submitted by Jewish organizations makes the point that “Judaism has many ‘ministers,’” that is, “the term ‘minister’ encompasses an extensive breadth of religious functionaries in Judaism.” For Muslims, “an inquiry into whether imams or other leaders bear a title equivalent to ‘minister’ can present a troubling choice between denying a central pillar of Islam—i.e., the equality of all believers—and risking loss of ministerial exception protections.”
If titles were all-important, courts would have to decide which titles count and which do not, and it is hard to see how that could be done without looking behind the titles to what the positions actually entail. Moreover, attaching too much significance to titles would risk privileging religious traditions with formal organizational structures over those that are less formal.
For related reasons, the academic requirements of a position may show that the church in question regards the position as having an important responsibility in elucidating or teaching the tenets of the faith. Presumably the purpose of such requirements is to make sure that the person holding the position understands the faith and can explain it accurately and effectively. But insisting in every case on rigid academic requirements could have a distorting effect. This is certainly true with respect to teachers. Teaching children in an elementary school does not demand the same formal religious education as teaching theology to divinity students. Elementary school teachers often teach secular subjects in which they have little if any special training. In addition, religious traditions may differ in the degree of formal religious training thought to be needed in order to teach. In short, these circumstances, while instructive in Hosanna-Tabor, are not inflexible requirements and may have far less significance in some cases.
What matters, at bottom, is what an employee does. And implicit in our decision in Hosanna-Tabor was a recognition that educating young people in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live their faith are responsibilities that lie at the very core of the mission of a private religious school. As we put it, Perich had been entrusted with the responsibility of “transmitting the Lutheran faith to the next generation.” One of the concurrences made the same point, concluding that the exception should include “any ‘employee’ who leads a religious organization, conducts worship services or important religious ceremonies or rituals, or serves as a messenger or teacher of its faith.”
Religious education is vital to many faiths practiced in the United States. [Justice Alito then surveyed the importance of religious education to Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Seventh-day Adventists.] This brief survey does not do justice to the rich diversity of religious education in this country, but it shows the close connection that religious institutions draw between their central purpose and educating the young in the faith.
2
When we apply this understanding of the Religion Clauses to the cases now before us, it is apparent that Morrissey-Berru and Biel qualify for the exemption we recognized in Hosanna-Tabor. There is abundant record evidence that they both performed vital religious duties. Educating and forming students in the Catholic faith lay at the core of the mission of the schools where they taught, and their employment agreements and faculty handbooks specified in no uncertain terms that they were expected to help the schools carry out this mission and that their work would be evaluated to ensure that they were fulfilling that responsibility. As elementary school teachers responsible for providing instruction in all subjects, including religion, they were the members of the school staff who were entrusted most directly with the responsibility of educating their students in the faith. And not only were they obligated to provide instruction about the Catholic faith, but they were also expected to guide their students, by word and deed, toward the goal of living their lives in accordance with the faith. They prayed with their students, attended Mass with the students, and prepared the children for their participation in other religious activities. Their positions did not have all the attributes of Perich’s. Their titles did not include the term “minister,” and they had less formal religious training, but their core responsibilities as teachers of religion were essentially the same. And both their schools expressly saw them as playing a vital part in carrying out the mission of the church, and the schools’ definition and explanation of their roles is important. In a country with the religious diversity of the United States, judges cannot be expected to have a complete understanding and appreciation of the role played by every person who performs a particular role in every religious tradition. A religious institution’s explanation of the role of such employees in the life of the religion in question is important.
III
In holding that Morrissey-Berru and Biel did not fall within the Hosanna-Tabor exception, the Ninth Circuit misunderstood our decision. Both panels treated the circumstances that we found relevant in that case as checklist items to be assessed and weighed against each other in every case, and the dissent does much the same. That approach is contrary to our admonition that we were not imposing any “rigid formula.” Instead, we called on courts to take all relevant circumstances into account and to determine whether each particular position implicated the fundamental purpose of the exception.
The Ninth Circuit’s rigid test produced a distorted analysis. First, it invested undue significance in the fact that Morrissey-Berru and Biel did not have clerical titles. It is true that Perich’s title included the term “minister,” but we never said that her title (or her reference to herself as a “minister”) was necessary to trigger the Hosanna-Tabor exception. Instead, “those considerations ... merely made Perich’s case an especially easy one.” Moreover, both Morrissey-Berru and Biel had titles. They were Catholic elementary school teachers, which meant that they were their students’ primary teachers of religion. The concept of a teacher of religion is loaded with religious significance. The term “rabbi” means teacher, and Jesus was frequently called rabbi. And if a more esoteric title is needed, they were both regarded as “catechists.”
Second, the Ninth Circuit assigned too much weight to the fact that Morrissey-Berru and Biel had less formal religious schooling than Perich. The significance of formal training must be evaluated in light of the age of the students taught and the judgment of a religious institution regarding the need for formal training. The schools in question here thought that Morrissey-Berru and Biel had a sufficient understanding of Catholicism to teach their students, and judges have no warrant to second-guess that judgment or to impose their own credentialing requirements.
Third, the St. James panel inappropriately diminished the significance of Biel’s duties because they did not evince “close guidance and involvement” in “students’ spiritual lives.” Specifically, the panel majority suggested that Biel merely taught “religion from a book required by the school,” “joined” students in prayer, and accompanied students to Mass in order to keep them “quiet and in their seats.” This misrepresents the record and its significance. For better or worse, many primary school teachers tie their instruction closely to textbooks, and many faith traditions prioritize teaching from authoritative texts. As for prayer, Biel prayed with her students, taught them prayers, and supervised the prayers led by students. She prepared them for Mass, accompanied them to Mass, and prayed with them there.
In Biel’s appeal, the Ninth Circuit suggested that the Hosanna-Tabor exception should be interpreted narrowly because the ADA and Title VII contain provisions allowing religious employers to give preference to members of a particular faith in employing individuals to do work connected with their activities. But the Hosanna-Tabor exception serves an entirely different purpose. Think of the quintessential case where a church wants to dismiss its minister for poor performance. The church’s objection in that situation is not that the minister has gone over to some other faith but simply that the minister is failing to perform essential functions in a satisfactory manner.
While the Ninth Circuit treated the circumstances that we cited in Hosanna-Tabor as factors to be assessed and weighed in every case, respondents would make the governing test even more rigid. In their view, courts should begin by deciding whether the first three circumstances—a ministerial title, formal religious education, and the employee’s self-description as a minister—are met and then, in order to check the conclusion suggested by those factors, ask whether the employee performed a religious function. For reasons already explained, there is no basis for treating the circumstances we found relevant in Hosanna-Tabor in such a rigid manner.
Respondents go further astray in suggesting that an employee can never come within the Hosanna-Tabor exception unless the employee is a “practicing” member of the religion with which the employer is associated. In hiring a teacher to provide religious instruction, a religious school is very likely to try to select a person who meets this requirement, but insisting on this as a necessary condition would create a host of problems. As pointed out by petitioners, determining whether a person is a “co-religionist” will not always be easy. Deciding such questions would risk judicial entanglement in religious issues.
Expanding the “co-religionist” requirement to exclude those who no longer practice the faith would be even worse. Would the test depend on whether the person in question no longer considered himself or herself to be a member of a particular faith? Or would the test turn on whether the faith tradition in question still regarded the person as a member in some sense?
Respondents argue that Morrissey-Berru cannot fall within the Hosanna-Tabor exception because she said in connection with her lawsuit that she was not “a practicing Catholic,” but acceptance of that argument would require courts to delve into the sensitive question of what it means to be a “practicing” member of a faith, and religious employers would be put in an impossible position. Morrissey-Berru’s employment agreements required her to attest to “good standing” with the church. Beyond insisting on such an attestation, it is not clear how religious groups could monitor whether an employee is abiding by all religious obligations when away from the job. Was OLG supposed to interrogate Morrissey-Berru to confirm that she attended Mass every Sunday?
Respondents argue that the Hosanna-Tabor exception is not workable unless it is given a rigid structure, but we declined to adopt a “rigid formula” in Hosanna-Tabor, and the lower courts have been applying the exception for many years without such a formula. Here, as in Hosanna-Tabor, it is sufficient to decide the cases before us. When a school with a religious mission entrusts a teacher with the responsibility of educating and forming students in the faith, judicial intervention into disputes between the school and the teacher threatens the school’s independence in a way that the First Amendment does not allow.
* * *
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals in each case is reversed, and the cases are remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice THOMAS, with whom Justice GORSUCH joins, concurring.
I agree with the Court that Morrissey-Berru’s and Biel’s positions fall within the “ministerial exception,” because, as Catholic school teachers, they are charged with “carry[ing] out [the religious] mission” of the parish schools. The Court properly notes that “judges have no warrant to second-guess [the schools’] judgment” of who should hold such a position “or to impose their own credentialing requirements.” Accordingly, I join the Court’s opinion in full. I write separately, however, to reiterate my view that the Religion Clauses require civil courts to defer to religious organizations’ good-faith claims that a certain employee’s position is “ministerial.”
This deference is necessary because, as the Court rightly observes, judges lack the requisite “understanding and appreciation of the role played by every person who performs a particular role in every religious tradition.” What qualifies as “ministerial” is an inherently theological question, and thus one that cannot be resolved by civil courts through legal analysis. Contrary to the dissent’s claim, judges do not shirk their judicial duty or provide a mere “rubber stamp” when they defer to a religious organization’s sincere beliefs. Rather, they heed the First Amendment, which “commands civil courts to decide [legal] disputes without resolving underlying controversies over religious doctrine.”
Moreover, because the application of the exception turns on religious beliefs, the duties that a given religious organization will deem “ministerial” are sure to vary. Although the functions recognized as ministerial by the Lutheran school in Hosanna-Tabor are similar to those considered ministerial by the Catholic schools here, such overlap will not necessarily exist with other religious organizations, particularly those “outside of the ‘mainstream.’” To avoid disadvantaging these minority faiths and interfering in “a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission,” courts should defer to a religious organization’s sincere determination that a position is “ministerial.”
The Court’s decision today is a step in the right direction. The Court properly declines to consider whether an employee shares the religious organization’s beliefs when determining whether that employee’s position falls within the “ministerial exception,” explaining that to “determin[e] whether a person is a ‘co-religionist’ ... would risk judicial entanglement in religious issues.” But the same can be said about the broader inquiry whether an employee’s position is “ministerial.” This Court usually goes to great lengths to avoid governmental “entanglement” with religion, particularly in its Establishment Clause cases. For example, the Court [in Santa Fe v. Doe] has held that a public school became impermissibly “entangle[d]” with religion by simply permitting students to say a prayer before football games and overseeing a class election for whom would deliver the prayer. And, in Locke v. Davey, the Court concluded that it would violate States’ “antiestablishment interests” if tax dollars even indirectly supported the education of ministers. But, when it comes to the autonomy of religious organizations in our ministerial-exception cases, these concerns of entanglement have not prevented the Court from weighing in on the theological questions of which positions qualify as “ministerial.”
As this Court has explained, the Religion Clauses do not permit governmental “interfere[nce] with ... a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. To avoid such interference, we should defer to these groups’ good-faith understandings of which individuals are charged with carrying out the organizations’ religious missions.
Here, the record confirms the sincerity of petitioners’ claims that, as lay teachers, Morrissey-Berru and Biel held ministerial roles in these parish schools. For example, the Our Lady of Guadalupe Faculty Handbook states that lay teachers serve “special pastoral administrative roles ... in the service of the people of God.” Moreover, their “essential job duties” include “[m]odeling, teaching of and commitment to Catholic religious and moral values.” And both Morrissey-Berru’s and Biel’s teaching contracts required that their “duties and responsibilities . . . be performed [with an] overriding commitment” to “develop[ing] . . . a Catholic School Faith Community” in accordance with “the doctrines, laws and norms of the Catholic Church.” Finally, amicus curiae United States Conference of Catholic Bishops confirms that petitioners’ understanding is consistent with the Church’s view that “Catholic teachers play a critical role” in the Church’s ministry.
The foregoing is more than enough to sustain the sincerity of petitioners’ claims that Morrissey-Berru and Biel held ministerial roles in the parish schools. Their claims thus warrant this Court’s deference and serve as a sufficient basis for applying the ministerial exception.
Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice GINSBURG joins, dissenting.
Two employers fired their employees allegedly because one had breast cancer and the other was elderly. Purporting to rely on this Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor, the majority shields those employers from disability and age-discrimination claims. In the Court’s view, because the employees taught short religion modules at Catholic elementary schools, they were “ministers” of the Catholic faith and thus could be fired for any reason, whether religious or nonreligious, benign or bigoted, without legal recourse. The Court reaches this result even though the teachers taught primarily secular subjects, lacked substantial religious titles and training, and were not even required to be Catholic. In foreclosing the teachers’ claims, the Court skews the facts, ignores the applicable standard of review, and collapses Hosanna-Tabor’s careful analysis into a single consideration: whether a church thinks its employees play an important religious role. Because that simplistic approach has no basis in law and strips thousands of schoolteachers of their legal protections, I respectfully dissent.
I
A
Our pluralistic society requires religious entities to abide by generally applicable laws. Consistent with the First Amendment (and over sincerely held religious objections), the Government may compel religious institutions to pay Social Security taxes for their employees, deny nonprofit status to entities that discriminate because of race, require applicants for certain public benefits to register with Social Security numbers, enforce child-labor protections, and impose minimum-wage laws.
Congress, however, has crafted exceptions to protect religious autonomy. Some antidiscrimination laws, like the Americans with Disabilities Act, permit a religious institution to consider religion when making employment decisions. Under that Act, a religious organization may also “require that all applicants and employees conform” to the entity’s “religious tenets.” Title VII further permits a school to prefer “hir[ing] and employ[ing]” people “of a particular religion” if its curriculum “propagat[es]” that religion. These statutory exceptions protect a religious entity’s ability to make employment decisions—hiring or firing—for religious reasons.
The “ministerial exception,” by contrast, is a judge-made doctrine. This Court first recognized it eight years ago in Hosanna-Tabor, concluding that the First Amendment categorically bars certain antidiscrimination suits by religious leaders against their religious employers. When it applies, the exception is extraordinarily potent: It gives an employer free rein to discriminate because of race, sex, pregnancy, age, disability, or other traits protected by law when selecting or firing their “ministers,” even when the discrimination is wholly unrelated to the employer’s religious beliefs or practices. That is, an employer need not cite or possess a religious reason at all; the ministerial exception even condones animus.
When this Court adopted the ministerial exception, it affirmed the holdings of virtually every federal appellate court that had embraced the doctrine. Those courts had long understood that the exception’s stark departure from antidiscrimination law is narrow. Wary of the exception’s “potential for abuse,” federal courts treaded “case-by-case” in determining which employees are ministers exposed to discrimination without recourse. Thus, their analysis typically trained on whether the putative minister was a “spiritual leader” within a congregation such that “he or she should be considered clergy.” That approach recognized that a religious entity’s ability to choose its faith leaders—rabbis, priests, nuns, imams, ministers, to name a few—should be free from government interference, but that generally applicable laws still protected most employees.
This focus on leadership led to a consistent conclusion: Lay faculty, even those who teach religion at church-affiliated schools, are not “ministers.” In Geary, for instance, the Third Circuit rejected a Catholic school’s view that “[t]he unique and important role of the elementary school teacher in the Catholic education system” barred a teacher’s discrimination claim under the First Amendment. In Dole, the Fourth Circuit found a materially similar statutory ministerial exception inapplicable to teachers who taught “all classes” “from a pervasively religious perspective,” “le[d]” their “students in prayer,” and were “required to subscribe to [a church] statement of faith as a condition of employment.” Similar examples abound.
Hosanna-Tabor did not upset this consensus. Instead, it recognized the ministerial exception’s roots in protecting religious “elections” for “ecclesiastical offices” and guarding the freedom to “select” titled “clergy” and churchwide leaders. To be sure, the Court stated that the “ministerial exception is not limited to the head of a religious congregation.” Nevertheless, this Court explained that the exception applies to someone with a leadership role “distinct from that of most of [the organization’s] members,” someone in whom “[t]he members of a religious group put their faith,” or someone who “personif[ies]” the organization’s “beliefs” and “guide[s] it on its way.”
This analysis is context-specific. It necessarily turns on, among other things, the structure of the religious organization at issue. Put another way (and as the Court repeats throughout today’s opinion), Hosanna-Tabor declined to adopt a “rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister.” Rather, Hosanna-Tabor focused on four “circumstances” to determine whether a fourth-grade teacher, Cheryl Perich, was employed at a Lutheran school as a “minister”: (1) “the formal title given [her] by the Church,” (2) “the substance reflected in that title,” (3) “her own use of that title,” and (4) “the important religious functions she performed for the Church.” Confirming that the ministerial exception applies to a circumscribed sub-category of faith leaders, the Court analyzed those four “factors” to situate Perich as a minister within the Lutheran Church’s structure.
B
[Justice Sotomayor then summarized the Court’s analysis in Hosanna-Tabor.] Because this inquiry is holistic, the Court warned [in Hosanna-Tabor] that it is “wrong” to “say that an employee’s title does not matter.” The Court was careful not to give religious functions undue weight in identifying church leaders. And the “amount of time an employee spends on particular activities,” the Court added, “is relevant in assessing that employee’s status” when measured against “the nature of the religious functions performed and the other considerations,” like titles, training, and how the employee held herself out to the public.
Hosanna-Tabor’s well-rounded approach ensured that a church could not categorically disregard generally applicable antidiscrimination laws for nonreligious reasons. By analyzing objective and easily discernable markers like titles, training, and public-facing conduct, Hosanna-Tabor charted a way to separate leaders who “personify” a church’s “beliefs” or who “minister to the faithful” from individuals who may simply relay religious tenets. This balanced First Amendment concerns of state-church entanglement while avoiding an overbroad carve-out from employment protections.
II
Until today, no court had held that the ministerial exception applies with disputed facts like these and lay teachers like respondents, let alone at the summary-judgment stage.
Only by rewriting Hosanna-Tabor does the Court reach a different result. The Court starts with an unremarkable view: that Hosanna-Tabor’s “recognition of the significance of ” the first three “factors” in that case “did not mean that they must be met—or even that they are necessarily important—in all other cases.” True enough. One can easily imagine religions incomparable to those at issue in Hosanna-Tabor and here. But then the Court recasts Hosanna-Tabor itself: Apparently, the touchstone all along was a two-Justice concurrence. To that concurrence, “what mattered” was “the religious function that [Perich] performed” and her “functional status.” Today’s Court yields to the concurrence’s view with identical rhetoric. “What matters,” the Court echoes, “is what an employee does.”
But this vague statement is no easier to comprehend today than it was when the Court declined to adopt it eight years ago. It certainly does not sound like a legal framework. Rather, the Court insists that a “religious institution’s explanation of the role of [its] employees in the life of the religion in question is important.” But because the Court’s new standard prizes a functional importance that it appears to deem churches in the best position to explain, one cannot help but conclude that the Court has just traded legal analysis for a rubber stamp.
Indeed, the Court reasons that “judges cannot be expected to have a complete understanding and appreciation” of the law and facts in ministerial-exception cases, and all but abandons judicial review. Although today’s decision is limited to certain “teachers of religion,” its reasoning risks rendering almost every Catholic parishioner and parent in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles a Catholic minister. That is, the Court’s apparent deference here threatens to make nearly anyone whom the schools might hire “ministers” unprotected from discrimination in the hiring process. That cannot be right. Although certain religious functions may be important to a church, a person’s performance of some of those functions does not mechanically trigger a categorical exemption from generally applicable antidiscrimination laws.
Today’s decision thus invites the “potential for abuse” against which circuit courts have long warned. Nevermind that the Court renders almost all of the Court’s opinion in Hosanna-Tabor irrelevant. It risks allowing employers to decide for themselves whether discrimination is actionable. Indeed, today’s decision reframes the ministerial exception as broadly as it can, without regard to the statutory exceptions tailored to protect religious practice. As a result, the Court absolves religious institutions of any animus completely irrelevant to their religious beliefs or practices and all but forbids courts to inquire further about whether the employee is in fact a leader of the religion. Nothing in Hosanna-Tabor (or at least its majority opinion) condones such judicial abdication.
III
Faithfully applying Hosanna-Tabor’s approach and common sense confirms that the teachers here are not Catholic “ministers” as a matter of law. This is especially so because the employers seek summary judgment, meaning the Court must “view the facts and draw reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to” the teachers. [Justice Sotomayor then recounted the facts relating to Biel and Morrissey-Berru, noting that “[a]t no point has [either school] suggested a religious reason” for the terminations at issue.]
B
On these records, the Ninth Circuit correctly concluded that neither school had shown that the ministerial exception barred the teachers’ claims for disability and age discrimination. At the very least, these cases should have proceeded to trial. Viewed in the light most favorable to the teachers, the facts do not entitle the employers to summary judgment.
First, and as the Ninth Circuit explained, neither school publicly represented that either teacher was a Catholic spiritual leader or “minister.” Neither conferred a title reflecting such a position. Rather, the schools referred to both Biel and Morrissey-Berru as “lay” teachers, which the circuit courts have long recognized as a mark of nonministerial, as opposed to “ministerial,” status.
In response, the Court worries that “attaching too much significance to titles would risk privileging religious traditions with formal organizational structures over those that are less formal.” That may or may not be true, but it is irrelevant here. These cases are not about “less formal” religions; they are about the Catholic Church and its publicized and undisputedly “formal organizational structur[e].” After all, the right to free exercise has historically “allow[ed] churches and other religious institutions to define” their own “membership” and internal “organization.” But that freedom of choice should carry consequences in litigation. And here, like the faith at issue in Hosanna-Tabor, the Catholic Church uses formal titles.
The Court then turns to irrelevant or disputed facts. The Court notes, for example, that a religiously significant term “rabbi” translates to “teacher,” suggesting that Biel’s and Morrissey-Berru’s positions as lay teachers conferred religious titles after all. But that wordplay unravels when one imagines the Court’s logic as applied to a math or gym or computer “teacher” at either school. The title “teacher” does not convey ministerial status. Nor does the Court gain purchase from the disputed fact that Biel and Morrissey-Berru were “regarded as ‘catechists’” “responsible for the faith formation of the[ir] students.” For one thing, the Court discusses evidence from only Morrissey-Berru’s case (not Biel’s). For another, the Court invokes the disputed deposition testimony of a school administrator while ignoring record evidence refuting that characterization and suggesting that Morrissey-Berru never completed the full catechist training program. Although the Archdiocese does confer titles and holds a formal “Catechist Commissioning” every September, the record does not suggest that either teacher here was so commissioned. In relying on disputed factual assertions, the Court’s blinkered approach completely disregards the summary-judgment standard.
Second (and further undermining the schools’ claims), neither teacher had a “significant degree of religious training” or underwent a “formal process of commissioning.” Nor did either school require such training or commissioning as a prerequisite to gaining (or keeping) employment. In Biel’s case, the record reflects that she attended a single conference that lasted “four or five hours,” briefly discussed “how to incorporate God into . . . lesson plans,” and otherwise “showed [teachers] how to do art and make little pictures or things like that.” Notably, all elementary school faculty attended the conference, including the computer teacher. In turn, Our Lady of Guadalupe did not ask Morrissey-Berru to undergo any religious training for her first 13 years of teaching, until it asked her to attend the uncompleted program described above. This consideration instructs that the teachers here did not fall within the ministerial exception.
Third, neither Biel nor Morrissey-Berru held herself out as having a leadership role in the faith community. Neither claimed any benefits (tax, governmental, ceremonial, or administrative) available only to spiritual leaders. Nor does it matter that all teachers signed contracts agreeing to model and impart Catholic values. This component of the Hosanna-Tabor inquiry focuses on outward-facing behavior, and neither Biel nor Morrissey-Berru publicly represented herself as anything more than a fifth-grade teacher. The Court does not grapple with this third component of Hosanna-Tabor’s inquiry, which seriously undermines the schools’ cases.
That leaves only the fourth consideration in Hosanna-Tabor: the teachers’ function. To be sure, Biel and Morrissey-Berru taught religion for a part of some days in the week. But that should not transform them automatically into ministers who “guide” the faith “on its way.” Although the Court does not resolve this functional question with “a stopwatch,” it still considers the “amount of time an employee spends on particular activities” in “assessing that employee’s status.” Here, the time Biel and Morrissey-Berru spent on secular instruction far surpassed their time teaching religion. For the vast majority of class, they taught subjects like reading, writing, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, math, science, social studies, and geography. In so doing, both were like any public school teacher in California, subject to the same statewide curriculum guidelines. In other words, both Biel and Morrissey-Berru had almost exclusively secular duties, making it especially improper to deprive them of all legal protection when their employers have not offered any religious reason for the alleged discrimination.
Nor is it dispositive that both teachers prayed with their students. Biel did not lead devotionals in her classroom, did not teach prayers, and had a minor role in monitoring student behavior during a once-a-month mass. Morrissey-Berru did lead classroom prayers, bring her students to a cathedral once a year, direct the school Easter play, and sign a contract directing her to “assist with Liturgy Planning.” But these occasional tasks should not trigger as a matter of law the ministerial exception. Morrissey-Berru did not lead mass, deliver sermons, or select hymns. And unlike the teacher in Hosanna-Tabor, there is no evidence that Morrissey-Berru led devotional exercises. Her limited religious role does not fit Hosanna-Tabor’s description of a “minister to the faithful.”
Nevertheless, the Court insists that the teachers are ministers because “implicit in our decision in Hosanna-Tabor was a recognition that educating young people in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live their faith are responsibilities that lie at the very core of the mission of a private religious school.” But teaching religion in school alone cannot dictate ministerial status. If it did, then Hosanna-Tabor wasted precious pages discussing titles, training, and other objective indicia to examine whether Cheryl Perich was a minister. Not surprisingly, the Government made this same point earlier in Biel’s case: “If teaching religion to elementary school students for a half-hour each day, praying with them daily, and accompanying them to weekly or monthly religious services were sufficient to establish a teacher as a minister of the church within the meaning of the ministerial exception, the Supreme Court would have had no need for most of its discussion in Hosanna-Tabor.” Rather, “the Court made clear in Hosanna-Tabor that context matters.” Indeed.
Were there any doubt left about the proper result here, recall that neither school has shown that it required its religion teachers to be Catholic. The Court does not explain how the schools here can show, or have shown, that a non-Catholic “personif[ies]” Catholicism or leads the faith. Instead, the Court remarks that a “rigid” coreligionist requirement might “not always be easy” to apply to faiths like Judaism or variations of Protestantism. Perhaps. But that has nothing to do with Catholicism.
Pause, for a moment, on the Court’s conclusion: Even if the teachers were not Catholic, and even if they were forbidden to participate in the church’s sacramental worship, they would nonetheless be “ministers” of the Catholic faith simply because of their supervisory role over students in a religious school. That stretches the law and logic past their breaking points. (Indeed, it is ironic that Our Lady of Guadalupe School seeks complete immunity for age discrimination when its teacher handbook promised not to discriminate on that basis.) As the Government once put it, even when a school has a “pervasively religious atmosphere,” its faculty are unlikely ministers when “there is no requirement that its teachers even be members of [its] religious denomination.” It is hard to imagine a more concrete example than these cases.
* * *
The Court’s conclusion portends grave consequences. As the Government (arguing for Biel at the time) explained to the Ninth Circuit, “thousands of Catholic teachers” may lose employment-law protections because of today’s outcome. Other sources tally over a hundred thousand secular teachers whose rights are at risk. And that says nothing of the rights of countless coaches, camp counselors, nurses, social-service workers, in-house lawyers, media-relations personnel, and many others who work for religious institutions. All these employees could be subject to discrimination for reasons completely irrelevant to their employers’ religious tenets.
In expanding the ministerial exception far beyond its historic narrowness, the Court overrides Congress’ carefully tailored exceptions for religious employers. Little if nothing appears left of the statutory exemptions after today’s constitutional broadside. So long as the employer determines that an employee’s “duties” are “vital” to “carrying out the mission of the church,” then today’s laissez-faire analysis appears to allow that employer to make employment decisions because of a person’s skin color, age, disability, sex, or any other protected trait for reasons having nothing to do with religion.
This sweeping result is profoundly unfair. The Court is not only wrong on the facts, but its error also risks upending antidiscrimination protections for many employees of religious entities. Recently, this Court has lamented a perceived “discrimination against religion.” Yet here it swings the pendulum in the extreme opposite direction, permitting religious entities to discriminate widely and with impunity for reasons wholly divorced from religious beliefs. The inherent injustice in the Court’s conclusion will be impossible to ignore for long, particularly in a pluralistic society like ours. One must hope that a decision deft enough to remold Hosanna-Tabor to fit the result reached today reflects the Court’s capacity to cabin the consequences tomorrow.
I respectfully dissent.