US Supreme Court tackles whether teachers at religious schools are 'ministers'

The U.S. Supreme Court has postponed arguments because of the coronavirus pandemic. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

April 8 (UPI) -- A pair of cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court involving discrimination claims by teachers fired by Catholic schools could have such a significant impact on religious institutions and their employees that several hundred groups and individuals are weighing in.

More than 40 friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed in the consolidated cases of Our Lady of Guadalupe School vs. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School vs. Biel, which center on whether the teachers are barred by the "ministerial exception" from bringing employment discrimination claims against their employers.

Under the exception, religious institutions have the ability to choose their own leaders without government interference, and employees who qualify as "ministers" are not protected by employment discrimination laws. The exemption, which is based on the First Amendment's religion clauses, stems from a 2012 Supreme Court decision in a similar case.

Both teachers taught fifth grade at Catholic parish schools in Los Angeles County. Kristen Biel worked in Torrance at St. James School, which had a recommendation -- but not a requirement -- that its teachers be Catholic. (Biel was Catholic).

In addition to teaching all academic subjects, Biel also taught a half-hour religion class four times a week by following instructions in a workbook. She accompanied her students to a multipurpose room for mass once a month and her job was to keep the class settled and quiet, according to court documents.

Biel learned toward the end of her first full year of teaching that she had breast cancer and told school administrators she would need to take time off for treatment. A short time later, she was told the school would not renew her contract.

Her one teaching evaluation had been generally positive but Biel was told her classroom management was "not strict" and it wasn't fair for children to have two teachers during the school year, court documents say.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Agnes Morrissey-Berru, who worked at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Hermosa for 16 years, taught academic subjects and a religion class. The school also preferred, but did not require, that its teachers be Catholic; Morrissey-Berru is Catholic.

Morrissey-Berru occasionally said a classroom prayer with the students for an ill parent, brought her students to a cathedral once a year to serve at the altar and directed the annual school Easter play, a brief says. In addition, her contract in her final year directed her to "assist with liturgy planning for school mass."

In 2014, when Morrissey-Berru was in her 60s, the school's principal expressed dissatisfaction with her classroom instruction and asked if she wanted to retire. After the teacher said no, she was demoted to part-time and her contract was not renewed the following year, court records say.

Biel and Morrissey-Berru sued and claimed, respectively, violation of the Americans with Disability Act and age discrimination. In both cases, a federal judge said the ministerial exception barred the suit.

Separate panels of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed those rulings after considering whether the school held out the teacher as a minister by bestowing a formal religious title, whether her title reflected ministerial training, whether the teacher held herself out as a minister and whether her duties included important religious functions.