Opinion ID: 894886
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Discrimination and the Ministerial Exception

Text: Cases involving claims of employment discrimination in church-minister relations are closely analogous, where the government's interest in eradicating discrimination collides with the church's constitutional right to manage its internal affairs free from government interference. See, e.g., EEOC v. Catholic Univ. of Am., 83 F.3d at 460. In these circumstances, courts have generally held that jurisdiction over a minister's Title VII claims of sex- and race-based discrimination must yield to First Amendment concerns when necessary to preserve the church's autonomy to manage its internal affairs. In Catholic University of America, for example, Sister Elizabeth McConough, a nun in the Dominican Order, alleged that the university had engaged in sex discrimination and retaliatory conduct in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it denied her tenure in its Department of Canon Law. Catholic Univ. of Am., 83 F.3d at 457. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argued, as Penley does here, that the dispute could be resolved by applying neutral principles of law without entangling the government in questions of religious doctrine. Id. at 465-66. The court disagreed, distinguishing the neutral trust- and property-law principles that were employed in Jones to determine ownership of land. Id. at 466. Acknowledging that generally an assessment of scholarship involves objective criteria independent of religious content, the court determined that those evaluating McDonough's publications were ultimately being asked to decide whether she was qualified to teach in the name of the Church. Id. Consequently, there was an inevitable risk that those who assessed her scholarship would have to consider whether her conclusions were in accord with what they believed the Church ought to teach. Id. As the trial court noted after attempting to decide the case applying neutral principles, `no expert testimony could effectively filter out the religious elements from the secular ones sufficiently to avoid unwholesome and impermissible entanglement with religious concerns.' Id. (quoting EEOC v. Catholic Univ. of Am., 856 F.Supp. 1, 12 (D.D.C.1994)). Because resolving McDonough's Title VII claims could interfere with the church's ability to resolve matters of religion, the court held it lacked jurisdiction. Id. at 467. [7] In Combs v. Central Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, Reverend Combs appealed the dismissal of her Title VII sex- and pregnancy-discrimination suit against the church. 173 F.3d 343 (5th Cir.1999). The sole issue before the Fifth Circuit was whether the district court correctly determined that the First Amendment precluded it from considering Combs's employment-discrimination case, even when the church's challenged actions were not based on religious doctrine. Id. at 345. Combs argued that the court had subject-matter jurisdiction because, unlike in Catholic University where the liability determination would have required an evaluation of church doctrine, there would be no such need in her case. Id. at 350. The court rejected this argument, reiterating the First Amendment's two-fold concern; that secular courts should not interpret religious doctrine, nor should they intrude into church governance in a manner that would be inherently coercive, even when the alleged discrimination is purely nondoctrinal. Id. Penley's contention implicates the latter concern, which the court in Combs found was enough to bar jurisdiction because the congressional mandate to eliminate discrimination in the work place must give way to the constitutional mandate to preserve church autonomy. Id.