Massachusetts High Court: Ministerial Exception Doctrine Applies To Age Discrimination Claim By Jewish Religious School Teacher

In Temple Emanuel of Newton v. Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination,  (MA Sup. Jud. Ct., Sept. 19, 2012), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the constitutionally mandated "ministerial exception" doctrine precludes a state court or administrative agency from applying Massachusetts' anti-discrimination laws to adjudicate an age discrimination complaint filed by a part-time religious school teacher who who was not rehired when a Jewish temple reduced its teaching staff from 20 to 12. The court said:

[plaintiff] was not a rabbi, was not called a rabbi, and did not hold herself out as a rabbi. The record is silent as to the extent of her religious training.... [S]he taught religious subjects at a school that functioned solely as a religious school, whose mission was to teach Jewish children about Jewish learning, language, history, traditions, and prayer..... [T]he fundamental question is whether it would infringe the free exercise of religion or cause excessive entanglement between the State and a religious group if a court were to order a religious group to hire or retain a religious teacher that the religious group did not want to employ, or to order damages for refusing to do so.... We conclude that it would. Where a school's sole mission is to serve as a religious school, the State should not intrude on a religious group's decision as to who should (and should not) teach its religion to the children of its members. Therefore, the ministerial exception applies to the school's employment decision regardless whether a religious teacher is called a minister or holds any title of clergy.

The Boston Globe reports on the decision.