Fired Teacher Case May Test Ministerial Exception Limits

By Don Byrd
Baptist Joint Committee
June 4, 2013

http://www.bjconline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5621&Itemid=134

A jury awarded $170,000 to teacher Christa Dias yesterday in an employment discrimination suit after she was fired for being pregnant while unmarried (via in vitro fertilization). Her employer was the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which now may argue the case should never have gotten to a jury due to the ministerial exception, which exempts religious employers from discrimination laws regarding employees with a ministerial role.

Associated Press has more:

The archdiocese argued before trial that Dias, who was a computer technology teacher, was a "ministerial employee," a position that has not been clearly defined by the courts.

The Supreme Court has said religious groups can dismiss those employees without government interference. But [Dias' attorney Robert] Klingler insisted Dias had no such ministerial duties, and the Cincinnati court found she was not a ministerial employee and that the issue couldn't be argued at trial.

[Constitutional law professor Jessie] Hill said the Supreme Court has left "uncertainty about who is and who isn't a ministerial employee," and she expects the case would be "closely watched at the appellate level."