Argument analysis: Justices divided in debate over “ministerial exception”
By Amy Howe on May 11, 2020 at 6:41 pm

This morning the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a pair of cases filed by two teachers in southern California, who sued the Catholic schools where they worked after they learned that their contracts wouldn’t be renewed. The Catholic schools have urged the courts to throw out the teachers’ cases, relying on a doctrine known as the “ministerial exception,” which bars ministers from suing churches and other religious institutions for employment discrimination. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the exception prohibited a lawsuit filed by a teacher at a Lutheran school who was also an ordained minister, but it expressly declined to provide a formula for courts to use to determine whether other employees qualify as ministers in future cases. The 2012 ruling was unanimous, but after over an hour and a half of oral argument today, it appeared less likely that the justices’ eventual decision in today’s cases would be.

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