Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-267_1an2.pdf
Page Number: 56

20 

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE SCHOOL v. 
MORRISSEY-BERRU 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

1986), pp. 11, 29, n. 17.  It is hard to imagine a more con-
crete example than these cases. 

* 

* 

* 

The Court’s conclusion portends grave consequences.  As 
the Government (arguing for Biel at the time) explained to 
the  Ninth  Circuit,  “thousands  of  Catholic  teachers”  may
lose  employment-law  protections  because  of  today’s  out-
come.  Recording of Oral Arg. 25:15–25:30 in No. 17–55180 
(July  11,  2018),  https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media/
view_video.php?pk_vid=0000014022.   Other  sources  tally
over a hundred thousand secular teachers whose rights are 
at risk.  See, e.g., Brief for Virginia et al. as Amici Curiae 
33, n. 25.  And that says nothing of the rights of countless
coaches,  camp  counselors,  nurses,  social-service  workers, 
in-house  lawyers,  media-relations  personnel,  and  many 
others  who  work  for  religious  institutions.    All  these  em-
ployees could be subject to discrimination for reasons com-
pletely irrelevant to their employers’ religious tenets. 

In expanding the ministerial exception far beyond its his-
toric  narrowness,  the  Court  overrides  Congress’  carefully
tailored exceptions for religious employers.  Little if nothing 
appears left of the statutory exemptions after today’s con-
stitutional broadside.  So long as the employer determines 
that an employee’s “duties” are “vital” to “carrying out the
mission of the church,” ante, at 21–22, then today’s laissez-
faire analysis appears to allow that employer to make em-
ployment decisions because of a person’s skin color, age, dis-
ability, sex, or any other protected trait for reasons having 
nothing to do with religion.

This sweeping result is profoundly unfair.  The Court is 
not only wrong on the facts, but its error also risks upending
antidiscrimination protections for many employees of reli-
gious  entities.  Recently,  this  Court  has  lamented  a  per-
ceived “discrimination against religion.”  E.g., Espinoza v. 
Montana Dept. of Revenue, ante, at 12.  Yet here it swings