Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel

The ministerial exception serves important purposes in safeguarding religious institutions’ autonomy with respect to governance and leadership. But it comes at significant cost, conferring the extraordinary power to discriminate against ministerial employees on any basis whatsoever. Given this sweeping immunity from nondiscrimination laws, the exception should apply only if the totality of the circumstances—taking into account all facts that may bear on the ministerial nature of a particular employee’s job—demonstrates that the employee is a minister of the faith. Applying that test, one of the teachers in these consolidate cases should qualify as a minister, but the other teacher should not.