Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-267_1an2.pdf
Page Number: 34

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

right to shape its own faith and mission,” id., at 188 (major-
ity opinion), courts should defer to a religious organization’s
sincere determination that a position is “ministerial.”  Id., 
at 197 (THOMAS, J., concurring).

The Court’s decision today is a step in the right direction.
The  Court  properly  declines  to  consider  whether  an  em-
ployee shares the religious organization’s beliefs when de-
termining 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.”    Ante,  at  26.    But  the 
same can be said about the broader inquiry whether an em-
ployee’s position is “ministerial.”  This Court usually goes 
to  great  lengths  to  avoid  governmental  “entanglement” 
with  religion,  particularly  in  its  Establishment  Clause 
cases.  See,  e.g.,  Lemon  v.  Kurtzman,  403  U. S.  602,  613 
(1971).2   For  example,  the  Court  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 de-
liver the prayer.  Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 
530 U. S. 290, 305–307 (2000).  And, in Locke v. Davey, 540 
U. S. 712 (2004), the Court concluded that it would violate
States’ “antiestablishment interests” if tax dollars even in-
directly  supported  the  education  of  ministers,  id.,  at  722. 
But, when it comes to the autonomy of religious organiza-
tions in our ministerial-exception cases, these concerns of 
entanglement have not prevented the Court from weighing 
—————— 

2 As  I  have  previously  explained,  this  Court’s  Establishment  Clause
jurisprudence  “is  unmoored  from  the  original  meaning  of  the  First 
Amendment.”  Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, ante, at 2 (concur-
ring opinion).  Properly understood, the Establishment Clause proscribes 
governmental “ ‘coercion of religious orthodoxy and of financial support 
by  force  of  law  and  threat  of  penalty.’ ”  American  Legion  v. American 
Humanist  Assn.,  588  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2019)  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring  in 
judgment)  (slip  op.,  at  3)  (quoting  Lee  v.  Weisman,  505  U. S.  577,  640 
(1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting)).