Hot Topics at the AALS: The Ministerial Exception

Our own Rick Garnett will moderate a "hot topics" panel discussion on Hosanna-Tabor and the ministerial exception at the AALS meeting in Washington next month:

Hot Topic Program: Church Autonomy, the Ministerial Exception, and Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC

Saturday, January 7, 2012

10:30am-12:15pm

Moderator: Richard W. Garnett, Notre Dame Law School

Speaker: Caroline Mala Corbin, University of Miami School of Law

Speaker: Leslie C. Griffin, University of Houston Law Center

Speaker: Douglas Laycock, University of Virginia School of Law

Speaker: Christopher C. Lund, Wayne State University Law School

Speaker: Robert W. Tuttle, The George Washington University Law School

Over the past forty years, courts have developed the “ministerial exception,” a legal doctrine which has immunized churches from employment-based claims brought by their clergy (and others with significant religious duties). The lower courts have generally recognized the exception, though they have disagreed on when exactly it applies and what exactly it covers. The Supreme Court, however, has never clarified its boundaries or even said it exists at all.

 

This fall, the United States Supreme Court heard argument in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, its first ministerial exception case. The case involves Cheryl Perich, a teacher at a Lutheran parochial school and commissioned minister in the faith, who brought state and federal retaliation claims against the church that had employed her. Hosanna-Tabor raises various issues about the ministerial exception itself—whether it exists, how it applies, and who it covers. It also raises larger questions about the right of church autonomy, the meaning of Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), and the intersection of equality and liberty.