Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru
The Supreme Court ruled that two Catholic school teachers were effectively 'ministers' under the First Amendment, barring their age- and disability-discrimination lawsuits even though neither held a formal ministerial title or had extensive religious training.
The decision significantly broadens the legal shield that protects religious institutions from employment-discrimination suits, putting potentially hundreds of thousands of religious-school employees beyond the reach of federal anti-discrimination law.
How it got here: Both Catholic schools won summary judgment in federal district court on the ministerial exception; the Ninth Circuit reversed in both cases; the Supreme Court granted review and consolidated the two appeals.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Agnes Morrissey-Berru taught fifth and sixth grade at Our Lady of Guadalupe School, a Catholic school in Los Angeles, for many years; after the school declined to renew her contract, she sued claiming age discrimination. Kristen Biel taught fifth grade at St. James School, another Catholic school nearby; when she told the school she needed time off for breast cancer treatment, she was let go and sued for disability discrimination. Both schools argued that, because the teachers carried out core religious duties, courts had no power to hear the cases.
The question before the Court
Can a religious school block a teacher's discrimination lawsuit by claiming she was a "minister" — even if she held no formal religious title and had minimal religious training — simply because she taught religion and led her students in prayer?
The Court's answer
Yes — the First Amendment bars both teachers from pursuing their discrimination claims. The Court held that the "ministerial exception" — a constitutional rule that prevents courts from adjudicating employment disputes involving certain key religious employees — applies based on what an employee actually does, not on whether she holds a formal ministerial title or has completed extensive religious training. The Court said the Ninth Circuit was wrong to treat the four factors identified in its 2012 Hosanna-Tabor decision as a mandatory checklist.
Both teachers taught religion daily, led students in prayer, prepared students for Catholic sacraments, attended Mass with their classes, and were evaluated on how faithfully they promoted the Catholic faith. Their employment agreements expressly required them to model and transmit the Catholic faith. Because educating children in the faith lies at the very core of a religious school's mission, those duties placed both teachers at the center of what their schools exist to do — and that, the Court said, is what matters.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Teachers at religious schools who are responsible for faith instruction — even without formal clerical titles or credentials — may be unable to sue for discrimination based on age, disability, sex, race, or other protected traits. Religious schools now have broad authority to dismiss these teachers for any reason, even one wholly unrelated to religion, without facing a legal challenge.
What changes now
Both cases are sent back to the lower courts, but because the ministerial exception bars the discrimination claims entirely, the lawsuits will be dismissed. The decision sets a broader standard — focused on religious duties rather than formal titles — that will govern future cases involving teachers and potentially other employees at religious institutions. Lower courts will continue applying the exception case by case under this more flexible framework.
What this does not decide
The Court says it is deciding only the cases before it and does not set a universal rule for every religious-institution employee. It does not address coaches, nurses, office staff, or others at religious organizations who do not primarily carry out faith-formation duties. It also does not decide whether either school's stated reason for dismissal was truthful or legitimate.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed with the result but urged an even simpler rule: civil courts should simply defer to a religious organization's good-faith determination that a position is 'ministerial,' without independently weighing the employee's duties. He argued that deciding what counts as 'ministerial' is an inherently theological question that secular courts cannot answer through legal analysis, and that independent judicial review creates exactly the kind of government entanglement with religion the First Amendment forbids.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
“Two employers fired their employees allegedly because one had breast cancer and the other was elderly.”The dissent's opening, framing the human stakes of extending the ministerial exception to ordinary classroom teachers.
Justice Sotomayor argued that the majority misread Hosanna-Tabor and stripped two women — one with cancer, one elderly — of their right to sue for discrimination. She contended that Hosanna-Tabor's four-factor analysis was designed to identify true faith leaders set apart from ordinary members of the congregation, and that teachers who primarily taught secular subjects, held no religious titles, underwent minimal religious training, and were not even required to be Catholic do not qualify. She warned the ruling could eliminate legal protections for hundreds of thousands of religious-school employees for reasons wholly unrelated to religion.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The First Amendment's Religion Clauses protect religious institutions' freedom to manage their own internal affairs, including decisions about who carries out their religious mission. Courts developed the 'ministerial exception' — a constitutional rule that bars employment-discrimination lawsuits brought by employees who perform key religious functions — to safeguard this independence. Without it, a court order reinstating or compensating a teacher could effectively dictate how a church transmits its faith.
- In the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor decision, the Court unanimously upheld the ministerial exception for a Lutheran school teacher who held a formal 'Minister of Religion, Commissioned' title, had completed a lengthy religious-training and commissioning process, identified herself publicly as a minister, and taught religion to her students. The Court identified those four circumstances as relevant but explicitly declined to treat them as a rigid formula applicable in every case.
- The Court's central insight — implicit in Hosanna-Tabor — is that educating children in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live by it lie at the very core of a private religious school's mission. The key question in any ministerial-exception case is therefore whether the employee's role goes to that core purpose: 'What matters, at bottom, is what an employee does.'
- The Court rejected the Ninth Circuit's approach of treating the Hosanna-Tabor circumstances as a mandatory checklist. Requiring a formal ministerial title would discriminate against faiths that use different terminology or have less hierarchical structures; requiring extensive religious degrees would be inconsistent with teaching young children rather than divinity students. These factors are relevant evidence of the importance attached to a role, but they are not threshold requirements.
- Applying this framework to both teachers: each taught religion every day, led daily prayer, prepared students for Mass and the sacraments, worshipped alongside students, and was formally evaluated on how well she promoted the Catholic faith. Their employment contracts obligated them to model and transmit Catholic doctrine. Both schools explicitly defined their teachers as central to carrying out the church's religious mission — and a religious institution's own description of an employee's role carries significant weight.
- Because both teachers were entrusted with the core responsibility of forming students in the faith, the ministerial exception applies. The Ninth Circuit erred by focusing on what the teachers lacked — a 'minister' title, formal commissioning — rather than on the religious duties they actually performed. Courts must take all relevant circumstances together and ask whether the position implicates the fundamental purpose the exception was designed to protect.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC (565 U. S. 171)
The Court reaffirms the ministerial exception but clarifies that its four factors are not a mandatory checklist, expanding the exception's reach.