Federal law and the U.S. Constitution’s religious liberty guarantees give religious schools sweeping authority to use their theological beliefs and doctrines to hire and fire employees, even if such actions might otherwise amount to an act of discrimination on the basis of sex, a federal appeals panel has ruled.
On July 28, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis could not be sued for discrimination by a lesbian guidance counselor who was fired by a Catholic high school after she married a woman, rejecting her claims she should be protected under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act.
Seventh Circuit Judge Michael B. Brennan authored the decision. Circuit judges Frank H. Easterbrook and Amy J. St. Eve concurred.
Luke Goodrich
| Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
“It is undisputed that the Roman Catholic Church deems same-sex marriages improper on doctrinal grounds and that avoiding such marriages is a kind of religious observance,” wrote Brennan.
“Same-sex marriages are lawful in secular society and are protected by Title VII when its rules apply… but are forbidden by many religious faiths.
“(Federal law) permits a religious employer to require the staff to abide by religious rules. A religious school is entitled to limit its staff to people who will be role models by living the life prescribed by the faith, which is part of ‘religion’ as (the law) defines that word,” Brennan wrote.
The decision centers on continued arguments over the breadth of the so-called “ministerial exception.” That “exception,” established through several U.S. Supreme Court decisions, generally allows churches and other religious organizations, including religious schools, great latitude in hiring, firing and disciplining employees who the religious body calls “ministers.” This latitude applies even if those employment-related decisions may otherwise run afoul of federal civil rights protections afforded to employees in secular settings.
Other cases have landed in numerous federal courts across the country, as courts grapple with questions of how to apply civil rights protections, particularly for LGBTQ individuals, to claims of employment discrimination within Catholic and other religious organizations, in which doctrines forbid adherents to practice lifestyles in accordance with their sex and gender identities, as recognized under federal law.
To this point, the decisions have overwhelmingly favored the religious organizations.
Recently, for instance, the Seventh Circuit ruled a gay former music minister at a Catholic church in Chicago could not sidestep the ministerial exception by claiming he had been subjected to a hostile work environment by church leaders, because he is gay.
In this case, plaintiff Lynn Starkey had sued the Indianapolis Archdiocese after she was fired from her position as a top guidance counselor and school administrator at Roncalli Catholic High School in Indianapolis.
Starkey, who is a lesbian, had worked for Roncalli since 1978, beginning as an assistant band director and choral director. She later worked as Roncalli’s New Testament teacher, as a certified catechist, and served as the school’s fine arts chair, according to the appellate decision.
She later became a guidance counselor, for which she completed a master’s degree, and served as co-director of guidance at Roncalli, a role in which she supervised the school’s guidance counselors and social workers, and served on Roncalli’s Administrative Council.
In that role, according to the decision, Starkey also helped establish “performance criteria” for Roncalli guidance counselors. About half of those criteria relied on “religious factors,” including the depth of counselors’ commitment to Catholic religious practices.
Further, the Administrative Council “meets weekly to address Roncalli’s ‘day-to-day operations and spiritual life,’” according to the court decision.
Despite such job requirements, the court decision notes that Starkey is not a practicing Catholic.
Further, Starkey claimed that despite her position of authority and influence over religious affairs within the high school, she should not be classified as a minister, but should be treated no differently than a teacher providing instruction in purely secular subjects.
The school, however, defined guidance counselors as “ministers of the faith” within its “teaching ministry contracts,” noting the guidance counselors’ job included such responsibilities as communicating “the Catholic faith to students and families” and praying “with and for students, families, colleagues and their intentions,” as well as to participate in and celebrate liturgies and prayer services, among other explicitly religious goals and tasks.
Starkey signed that contract, according to the decision.
The contract also included a “morals clause,” which “required employees refrain from ‘any personal conduct or lifestyle at variance with the policies of the Archdiocese or the moral or religious teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.” Those teachings included explicit instruction that the Catholic church would only recognize marriage between a man and a woman.
In 2018, Starkey was fired after she informed the school that she had married a woman.
Starkey then was hired at a public school as a guidance counselor for a higher salary, the appellate decision noted.
Starkey sued the Archdiocese in 2019, claiming the Archdiocese and Roncalli had discriminated against her on the basis of sex, and violated her rights under Title VII.
An Indiana federal district court judge granted judgment to the Archdiocese, saying Starkey was a ministerial employee, so the ministerial exception should apply.
On appeal, the Seventh Circuit reached the same conclusion.
“In short, Starkey was entrusted with communicating the Catholic faith to children, supervising guidance counselors, and advising the principal on matters related to the school’s religious mission,” Brennan wrote.
The judges also rejected Starkey’s attempt to argue around the ministerial nature of her former job. Starkey argued “she never engaged in religious matters or held a formal religious title.”
Brennan said allowing this argument would “immunize” many ministers from the ministerial exception “by failing to perform certain job duties and responsibilities.”
“But an employee is still a minister if she fails to adequately perform the religious duties she was hired and entrusted to do,” Brennan wrote.
Brennan and the court further determined the ministerial exception also barred Starkey’s discrimination claims under Indiana state law.
While joining in the decision generally, Judge Easterbrook filed a separate concurring opinion, gently chiding his colleagues for heading straight to the First Amendment protections afforded to churches and religious organizations, rather than simply interpreting the text of the federal civil rights law.
He noted a subchapter of Title VII already “shows that the Diocese was entitled to fire Starkey without any regard to any of the substantive rules of Title VII.”
Easterbrook noted Title VII’s Section 702(a) already includes language explicitly exempting any “religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to … employment” from the discrimination protections otherwise afforded under Title VII.
This exemption, said Easterbrook, generally shields religious organizations of all kinds from sex discrimination claims, so long as the alleged discrimination “is founded on religious beliefs.”
“… When the decision is founded on religious beliefs, then all of Title VII drops out,” Easterbrook wrote. “I cannot imagine any plausible reading of ‘this subchapter’ that boils down to ‘churches can discriminate against persons of other faiths but cannot discriminate on account of sex.’
“… The Diocese is carrying out its theological views; that its adherence to Roman Catholic doctrine produces a form of sex discrimination does not make the action less religiously based.”
The Archdiocese has been represented in the case by attorney Luke Goodrich, of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, of Washington, D.C.
Starkey has been represented by attorneys Kathleen A. DeLaney and Matthew R. Gutwein, of the firm of DeLaney & DeLaney, of Indianapolis.