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Page Number: 46.0

10 

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

religious functions may be important to a church, a person’s
performance of some of those functions does not mechani-
cally trigger a categorical exemption from generally appli-
cable antidiscrimination laws. 

Today’s  decision  thus  invites  the  “potential  for  abuse” 
against  which  circuit  courts  have  long  warned.    Scharon, 
929 F. 2d, at 363, n. 3.  Nevermind that the Court renders 
almost all of the Court’s opinion in Hosanna-Tabor irrele-
vant.  It risks allowing employers to decide for themselves
whether discrimination is actionable.  Indeed, today’s deci-
sion reframes the ministerial exception as broadly as it can, 
without regard to the statutory exceptions tailored to pro-
tect religious practice.  As a result, the Court absolves reli-
gious  institutions  of  any  animus  completely  irrelevant  to
their religious beliefs or practices and all but forbids courts
to inquire further about whether the employee is in fact a 
leader  of  the  religion.   Nothing  in  Hosanna-Tabor  (or  at
least  its  majority  opinion)  condones  such  judicial  abdica-
tion. 

III
  Faithfully applying Hosanna-Tabor’s approach and com-
mon sense confirms that the teachers here are not Catholic 
“ministers” as a matter of law.  This is especially so because 
the employers seek summary judgment, meaning the Court 
must “view the facts and draw reasonable inferences in the 
light most favorable to” the teachers.  Scott v. Harris, 550 
U. S. 372, 378 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).5 

—————— 

5 The  Court  maintains  that  the  Court  of  Appeals  erred  by  “in  effect” 
granting summary judgment to the teachers on the ministerial exception
instead of “remand[ing] for a trial.”  Ante, at 3, n. 1.  Yet today’s decision 
commits the exact error it claims to diagnose: The Court views the facts
in the light most favorable to the schools and “in effect” grants summary
judgment to the movants instead of remanding for a trial.  As explained 
below,  the  Court  is  also  wrong  to  assert  that  there  is  no  material  fact 
genuinely in dispute.  Compare ibid. (asserting that “neither party takes