Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-267_1an2.pdf
Page Number: 41

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

5 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

congregation.”    Id.,  at  190.  Nevertheless,  this  Court  ex-
plained that the exception applies to someone with a lead-
ership role “distinct from that of most of [the organization’s] 
members,” someone in whom “[t]he members of a religious 
group  put  their  faith,”  or  someone  who  “personif[ies]”  the 
organization’s “beliefs” and “guide[s] it on its way.”  Id., at 
188, 191, 196.1 

This analysis is context-specific.  It necessarily turns on,
among other things, the structure of the religious organiza-
tion at issue.  Put another way (and as the Court repeats 
throughout  today’s  opinion),  Hosanna-Tabor  declined  to 
adopt a “rigid formula for deciding when an employee qual-
ifies as a minister.”  565 U. S., at 190.  Rather, Hosanna-
Tabor  focused  on  four  “circumstances”  to  determine 
whether  a  fourth-grade  teacher,  Cheryl  Perich,  was  em-
ployed at a Lutheran school as a “minister”: (1) “the formal
title given [her] by the Church,” (2) “the substance reflected 
in  that  title,”  (3)  “her  own  use  of  that  title,”  and  (4)  “the 
important  religious  functions  she  performed  for  the 
Church.”  Id., at 190, 192.  Confirming that the ministerial
exception  applies  to  a  circumscribed  sub-category  of  faith 
leaders, the Court analyzed those four “factors,” ante, at 16, 
to  situate  Perich  as  a  minister  within  the  Lutheran 
Church’s structure. 

B 
Those  considerations  showed  that  Perich  had  a  unique
leadership role within her church.  First, the Court noted 
that the school had “held Perich out as a minister, with a 
role distinct from that of most of its members.”  565 U. S., 
—————— 

1 While jettisoning most of Hosanna-Tabor’s majority opinion and in-
sisting  on  “implicit”  rationales  that  featured  in  a  two-Justice  concur-
rence,  ante,  at  18,  today’s  Court  curiously  accuses  this  dissent  of 
“cobb[ling] together” a standard focused on leadership, ante, at 22, n. 26. 
But leadership was central in Hosanna-Tabor, just as it was explicit in 
the appellate court consensus that Hosanna-Tabor embraced.  See supra, 
at 3–4.