Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 86.0

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

49 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

based  employment  practices  of  numerous  churches,  syna-
gogues, mosques, and other religious institutions.”51  They
argue  that  “[r]eligious  organizations  need  employees  who 
actually live the faith,”52 and that compelling a religious or-
ganization to employ individuals whose conduct flouts the 
tenets  of  the  organization’s  faith  forces  the  group  to  com-
municate an objectionable message.

This problem is perhaps most acute when it comes to the 
employment of teachers.  A school’s standards for its faculty 
“communicate a particular way of life to its students,” and
a  “violation  by  the  faculty  of  those  precepts”  may  under-
mine  the  school’s  “moral  teaching.”53    Thus,  if  a  religious
school teaches that sex outside marriage and sex reassign-
ment procedures are immoral, the message may be lost if 
the school employs a teacher who is in a same-sex relation-
ship or has undergone or is undergoing sex reassignment.
Yet  today’s  decision  may  lead  to  Title  VII  claims  by  such
teachers and applicants for employment.

At least some teachers and applicants for teaching posi-
tions may be blocked from recovering on such claims by the
“ministerial exception” recognized in Hosanna-Tabor Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U. S. 171 
(2012).  Two  cases  now  pending  before  the  Court  present 
the  question  whether  teachers  who  provide  religious  in-
struction can be considered to be “ministers.”54  But even if 
teachers  with  those  responsibilities  qualify,  what  about 
other very visible school employees who may not qualify for 

—————— 

51 Brief for National Association of Evangelicals et al. as Amici Curiae 
3; see also Brief for United States Conference of Catholic Bishops et al. 
as Amici Curiae in No. 18–107, pp. 8–18. 

52 Brief for National Association of Evangelicals et al. as Amici Curiae 

7. 

53 McConnell, Academic Freedom in Religious Colleges and Universi-

ties, 53 Law & Contemp. Prob. 303, 322 (1990). 

54 See Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, No. 19–267; 

St. James School v. Biel, No. 19–348.