Friend:

Most people wouldn’t consider a college professor of social work to be a minister. And most people wouldn’t agree that being a minister gives your employer a license to libel, harass, or discriminate against you. But for those who believe religious freedom is synonymous with religious privilege, there are no limits to what they will argue in courts of law.

Of the many privileges religious extremists claim for themselves, what’s known as the “ministerial exception” is among the most frequently abused. Intended to allow houses of worship to freely choose their clergy, it’s become a one-size-fits-all fig leaf for employment discrimination by houses of worship, religious schools, and other religious entities, and is the issue in several active AU lawsuits, including one on the Supreme Court’s radar.

In Gordon College v. Margaret DeWeese-Boyd, AU represents a professor at a Christian college who was denied a promotion after eighteen years of employment, despite the unanimous support of the faculty senate. Professor Margaret DeWeese-Boyd alleged that the college discriminated against her because she is a woman and because she advocated for the rights and safety of LGBTQ students, among other things.

As a professor of social work, DeWeese-Boyd provided no spiritual guidance or religious instruction to students. Yet, the college argues that because they view her as a “minister,” they are not subject to legal challenges even when an employee’s civil rights are violated and anti-discrimination laws are ignored.

A state trial court and the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts both rejected the college’s outrageous claim. Last summer, the college—represented by the Religious Right legal group Alliance Defending Freedom—asked the Supreme Court to review the case, and that request was denied this week. It’s a victory for Prof. DeWeese-Boyd, AU, and religious freedom.

But (there’s always a but) that victory may be short-lived. Every case the court considers has its own wrinkles, some of which make them less than ideal vehicles even for justices very interested in reviewing the underlying issues. That’s why Justice Samuel Alito’s written statement—much like one he crafted at an earlier stage of our current Kennedy v. Bremerton School District case—included a roadmap for a religious college to iron out those wrinkles and bring an appeal more suitable to several conservative justices’ purposes.

In other words, stay tuned for a Supreme Court that agrees to hear the case or the same issues in another case in the future. And perhaps a future ruling that will give religious employers what they’re seeking: a free pass to discriminate against their entire workforce and sidestep civil-rights laws.

A second ministerial-exception case also is on the top of our desks this week: Belya v. Kapral, a case involving an Orthodox Christian bishop who was falsely accused of forging documents to gain his position and was libeled by church staff members who dragged his reputation through the mud in public letters, social media posts, and other platforms.

Father Alexander Belya’s standing in his church community was destroyed, severely hampering his prospects for future employment. Yet, those who caused this damage insist the ministerial exception and a related tenet known as “church autonomy” shields them from litigation or any requirement to answer for their unlawful behavior in a court of law. It would be a remarkable expansion of those doctrines—which are intended to protect religious organizations’ religious decisions—to apply them to Belya’s defamation claims based on the lies that were told about him.

AU Litigation Counsel Bradley Girard will argue Father Alexander’s case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday.

Both cases show that AU is at the forefront of keeping the ministerial exception confined to its original purpose of allowing houses of worship to freely choose their clergy and not allowing it to morph into an unlimited license to discriminate in the name of religion against every employee of a religious institution. Thank you for giving us the moral and financial support to be there.

With hope and gratitude,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO