Jewish groups welcome high court ‘ministerial exception’ decision

WASHINGTON (JTA) – In a decision issued Wednesday, Jan. 11, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the right of religious institutions to use “ministerial exception” to bypass employee discrimination protections and fire staff, but stopped short of setting parameters for the exception.

Some civil libertarians had argued that courts should have the right to intervene in matters pertaining to the employment of clergy, a stance that even some of their usual allies in the Jewish community rejected.

The Reform movement and the American Jewish Committee said considerations of whether ministry was essential to a staffer’s role should not be assessed according to hours worked. The Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America favored allowing broad discretion to religious institutions in determining ministerial status.

“There’s nothing more fundamental than choosing your own clergy,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, which praised the court’s ruling.

The court’s ruling could limit legal recourse for members of the clergy in their dealings with employers. Even before the ruling, rabbinical associations were already advising rabbis to write employment protections into their contracts, an official of one such rabbinical group said.

In the case decided by the high court, a teacher alleged that a Michigan religious school had violated the Americans With Disabilities Act in firing her. The school claimed that Cheryl Perich, who suffers from narcolepsy, was exempt from protection as a minister. Perich and the EEOC countered that most of her work involved secular teaching.

In its decision, the court held that Perich fell under the “ministerial exception” rule not because of the amount of time she devoted to religious teaching — 45 minutes a day — but because she had been ordained by the church in 2000.Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the opinion, said the issue “is not one that can be resolved by a stopwatch.” Roberts added that the court would not “adopt a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister.”