The Supreme Court Wednesday heard arguments — including amicus (friend of the court) briefs by the American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee and the National Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) — in a case involving a religious school’s claim that its policies on the employment of teachers are protected by the First Amendment.
The case involves the Dayton Christian Schools (DCS), a consortium of evangelical schools in Ohio, and its refusing to rehire, and then its firing, one of its female elementary teachers, The DCS justified both actions on grounds that the teacher’s behavior was contrary to its religious beliefs. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission considered both actions to be violations of the state’s anti-discrimination statute.
The Supreme Court will have to decide whether a religious school’s policy that its teachers adhere to its religious beliefs as a condition of employment can be defended on First Amendment grounds.
If it can, then this policy, as a religious right, overrides anti-bias laws. This would obviously have implications for Jewish religious schools’ employment policies.
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE
The case began in January 1979, when born-again Christian Linda Hoskinson was a teacher at DCS’ elementary school. After she informed her principal that she would have a baby in the fall, he told her she would not be rehired in September. His reason: the school’s religious beliefs include the tenet that mothers should stay home with their young children and therefore she would not be an appropriate role model as a teacher.
Hoskinson discussed this with her attorney who wrote the school a letter threatening a lawsuit. The school then fired Hoskinson at once, for violating another of its religious beliefs — breaking the “Biblical chain-of -command” by seeking the advice of an outside, secular, authority — in this case, her attorney.
In March, 1979, Hoskinson filed a suit with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission under the state’s antidiscrimination law, charging that the DCS had engaged in sex discrimination and illegal retaliation. The Commission found in her favor, and the federal district court, which heard the DCS’ suit, upheld the Commission.
The DCS took the case to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, where it won on constitutional grounds. The appellate tribunal declared that state interference with the DCS’s selection of religious role models, such as teachers, constituted ” a substantial burden on religious freedom. “The Commission then took the case to the Supreme Court.
ARGUMENTS IN THE BRIEFS
The briefs of the American Jewish Committee and of COLPA upheld the DCS position. The American Jewish Committee brief said that “the state may not compel a private religious school and the parents and students attending (it) to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs by requiring the school to continue to employ a teacher who acts contrary to those beliefs.”
COLPA held that any government proceeding into “the selection, termination or assignment of personnel who participate in the religious mission of a religious institution” violates the First Amendment.
The American Jewish Congress brief, however, supports the DCS on constitutional grounds only on its refusal to rehire Hoskinson, and then, only by applying one of the two clauses in the First Amendment the “free exercise” clause.
Under the interpretation of this clause — which mandates people’s right to practice their religion unimpeded by government — a religious institution may be exempted from adhering to a law if its action is “religiously motivated” and if its exemption is not outweighed by a “compelling state interest.”
The AJCongress argues, as well, that this clause does not protect the DCS action on the firing of Hoskinson. It regards the state’s interest in preventing retaliation–such as firing — against persons who file suits under anti-discrimination laws as sufficiently compelling to outweigh the school’s religious concerns.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
