Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-267_1an2.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

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

9 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

ante, at 1–2 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (urging complete def-
erence to a religious institution in determining which em-
ployees are exempt from antidiscrimination laws).  But be-
cause  the  Court’s  new  standard  prizes  a  functional
importance that it appears to deem churches in the best po-
sition  to  explain,  one  cannot  help  but  conclude  that  the 
Court has just traded legal analysis for a rubber stamp.3 

Indeed,  the  Court  reasons  that  “judges  cannot  be  ex-
pected to have a complete understanding and appreciation”
of the law and facts in ministerial-exception cases, ante, at 
22, and all but abandons judicial review.  Although today’s
decision is limited to certain “teachers of religion,” ante, at 
22–23, its reasoning risks rendering almost every Catholic 
parishioner and parent in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles a 
Catholic minister.4  That is, the Court’s apparent deference
here  threatens  to  make  nearly  anyone  whom  the  schools 
might hire “ministers” unprotected from discrimination in 
the hiring process.  That cannot be right.  Although certain 
—————— 

3 Elsewhere, the Court hints at a comparative inquiry, noting that Biel 
and Morrissey-Berru were the school staff “entrusted most directly” with
“educating their students in the faith.”  Ante, at 21.  Setting aside the 
Court’s factual assumptions, one must ask: “[M]ost directly” compared to
what (or whom)?  The Court does not say.  Perhaps the Court means to 
embrace the predominant circuit approach, which looked at whether a 
putative minister “serv[ed] primarily religious roles.”  Hankins v. Lyght, 
441 F. 3d 96, 117, 118, n. 13 (CA2 2006) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (iden-
tifying seven Circuits); see also, e.g., Petruska v. Gannon University, 462 
F. 3d 294, 304, n. 6, 307 (CA3 2006).  But were that the case, the teachers 
would have undoubtedly prevailed here. 

4 See, e.g., Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Administrative Handbook §2.3.1 
(“[P]arishioners  are  vital  to  parish  life  as  volunteers.  They  partic-
ipate as catechists in religious education, organize youth ministry and
adult  events,  assist  in  charitable  and  social  outreach  activities  in  the 
community, and serve as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, lec-
tors, altar servers, and ushers, as well as in other supporting ministerial 
roles”); Pope Francis, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on Love in the 
Family 13–14 (2015) (“The family is . . . the place where parents become
their  children’s  first  teachers  in  the  faith  . . . .  Parents  have  a  serious 
responsibility for this work of education”).