In Billard v. Charlotte Catholic High School, (4th Cir., May 8, 2024), the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Catholic high school teacher's suit alleging sex discrimination in violation of Title VII should be dismissed. The court's majority held that the ministerial exception doctrine defeated the suit by the teacher of English and drama who was not invited back to teach after he announced plans to marry his same-sex partner. The majority, finding that the teacher should be classified as a "minister" for purposes of the ministerial exception, said in part:
[F]aith infused CCHS’s classes – and not only the expressly religious ones. Even as a teacher of English and drama, Billard’s duties included conforming his instruction to Christian thought and providing a classroom environment consistent with Catholicism. Billard may have been teaching Romeo and Juliet, but he was doing so after consultation with religious teachers to ensure that he was teaching through a faith-based lens.... The record makes clear that CCHS considered it “vital” to its religious mission that its teachers bring a Catholic perspective to bear on Shakespeare as well as on the Bible.
Moreover, we note that Billard did – on rare occasions – fill in for teachers of religion classes.... CCHS’s apparent expectation that Billard be ready to instruct in religion as needed is another “relevant circumstance” indicating the importance of Billard’s role to the school’s religious mission.
Our court has recognized before that seemingly secular tasks like the teaching of English and drama may be so imbued with religious significance that they implicate the ministerial exception.
The majority rejected the school's argument for broadening statutory defenses to the Title VII claim.
Judge King filed an opinion concurring in the result but differing as to rationale. He said in part:
... I would neither reach nor resolve the First Amendment ministerial exception issue on which the majority relies. I would decide this appeal solely on Title VII statutory grounds, that is, § 702 of Title VII.... [M]y good friends of the panel majority have unnecessarily resolved the appeal on the First Amendment constitutional issue. In so ruling, they have strayed from settled principles of the constitutional avoidance doctrine and our Court’s precedent.
