Supreme Court rulings elevate religion in the workplace

Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have fundamentally altered the role of religious standards as factors in providing general legal protections in the workplace. In Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Agnes Morrissey-Berru and its companion case, St. James School v. Biel, and Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, the Court continued the trend established in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014) by placing religious—and even “moral”—objections on equal (or even superior) footing with omnibus federal legislation. When read together with other recent rulings, the cases indicate the widely hailed expansion of protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for LGBTQ individuals will be challenged by employers with “sincerely held” beliefs and given generous treatment by the Court.

Ministerial exception

In Our Lady of Guadalupe, two lay teachers alleged they were terminated because of their age and disability. The Catholic parochial schools claimed they could not be held accountable under prevailing employment discrimination laws because the teachers led or participated in some religious activities. Neither teacher had any specialized religious training, but the schools asserted they had a role in inculcating the organizations’ religious beliefs and goals and thus were covered by the “ministerial exception.”