Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2012

Publication Information

LXXXV The Cresset 19 (Lent 2012)

Abstract

A small Lutheran church school dispute became a nationally debated case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and v. EEOC, decided by the Supreme Court on 11 January 2012. At the heart of the Supreme Court case was a controversy over the so-called "ministerial exception" to federal anti-discrimination statutes such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Until the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Hosanna-Tabor, finding that Cheryl Perich was not a minister within the exception, all circuit courts to rule on the issue had recognized a ministerial exception in order to avoid First Amendment problems caused by federal and state government interference with religious bodies. In brief, the exception prohibits employees of religious bodies called as ministers (or the tradition's equivalent) from bringing employment discrimination and related claims to secular courts. The case drew over thirty amicus (friend-of-the-court) briefs, including from humanist and atheist groups, the American Jewish Committee, the Muslim Americans Public Affairs Council, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and many Protestant denominations.

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