Opinion ID: 718187
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The EEOC's Investigation and Litigation

Text: 70 As the Supreme Court has observed, [i]t is not only the conclusions that may be reached by [an agency] which may impinge on rights guaranteed by the Religion Clauses, but also the very process of inquiry leading to findings and conclusions. NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U.S. 490, 502, 99 S.Ct. 1313, 1320, 59 L.Ed.2d 533 (1979). Cf. Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U.S. 402, 413, 105 S.Ct. 3232, 3238, 87 L.Ed.2d 290 (1985) (pervasive monitoring by public authorities in the sectarian schools infringes precisely on those Establishment Clause values at the root of the prohibition of excessive entanglement.). 71 An excessive entanglement may occur where there is a sufficiently intrusive investigation by a government entity into a church's employment of its clergy. In Young, for example, the Seventh Circuit stated that civil court review of ecclesiastical decisions ...[,] particularly those pertaining to the hiring or firing of clergy, are in themselves an 'extensive inquiry' into religious law and practice, and hence forbidden by the First Amendment. 21 F.3d at 187 (construing Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 96 S.Ct. 2372) (emphasis in original). Although we did not address the Establishment Clause in Minker, we nevertheless observed that any inquiry into the Church's reasons for asserting that Minker was not suited for a particular pastorship would constitute an excessive entanglement in its affairs. 894 F.2d at 1360. 72 In this case, the EEOC's two-year investigation of Sister McDonough's claim, together with the extensive pre-trial inquiries and the trial itself, constituted an impermissible entanglement with judgments that fell within the exclusive province of the Department of Canon Law as a pontifical institution. See Rayburn, 772 F.2d at 1171 (noting that a Title VII action is a potentially ... lengthy proceeding that could subject church personnel and records to subpoena, discovery, and cross-examination). This suit and the extended investigation that preceded it has caused a significant diversion of the Department's time and resources. Moreover, we think it fair to say that the prospect of future investigations and litigation would inevitably affect to some degree the criteria by which future vacancies in the ecclesiastical faculties would be filled. Having once been deposed, interrogated, and haled into court, members of the Department of Canon Law and of the faculty review committees who are responsible for recommending candidates for tenure would do so with an eye to avoiding litigation or bureaucratic entanglement rather than upon the basis of their own personal and doctrinal assessments of who would best serve the ... needs of the Department. Id. 73 These conclusions are a sufficient basis for affirming the district court's dismissal of this case under the Establishment Clause. We think it worth noting, nevertheless, that those conclusions also bring this case within an exception to the rule in Smith that the right of free exercise is not a defense against the application of a neutral law of general application, such as Title VII. There, the Court specifically identified a class of cases in which it held that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral, generally applicable law. Smith, 494 U.S. at 881, 110 S.Ct. at 1601. These cases have involved not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections.... Id. Among the examples cited by the Court are Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940), and Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 63 S.Ct. 870, 87 L.Ed. 1292 (1943) (combination of free exercise and freedom of speech concerns), and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) (combining free exercise concerns with the right of parents to direct the education of their children). Smith, 494 U.S. at 881, 110 S.Ct. at 1601. We have demonstrated that the EEOC's attempt to enforce Title VII would both burden Catholic University's right of free exercise and excessively entangle the Government in religion. As a consequence, this case presents the kind of hybrid situation referred to in Smith that permits us to find a violation of the Free Exercise Clause even if our earlier conclusion that the ministerial exception survived Smith should prove mistaken.