A Catholic high school in Indianapolis, Indiana, retained the right to fire a school guidance counselor whose same-sex marriage violated the school’s employment contract and church teachings, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
In citing the “ministerial exception” that allows religious organizations to determine who can be employed in a religious function, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals again said that clause allowed Roncalli High School, owned by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, to not renew the employment contract of Michelle Fitzgerald, a co-director of guidance at the school.
Ms. Fitzgerald’s 14-year employment at Roncalli ended when school officials learned of her same-sex union. The school also declined to renew the contract of Lynn Starkey, the other guidance co-director there, when it learned she had entered a separate same-sex marriage.
Both Ms. Starkey and Ms. Fitzgerald claimed the school and archdiocese were in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans sex discrimination. But the school’s attorneys argued the ministerial exception — a provision safeguarding the free exercise rights of religious groups — allowed them to hold employees to their doctrinal standards.
Federal Judge Amy St. Eve, a Trump appointee to the circuit court, wrote for the three-judge panel that “There is no dispute that the defendants fired Fitzgerald because of her same-sex marriage and that Title VII prohibits this kind of sex discrimination,” but added that the ministerial exception guards the defendants “from statutory liability.”
Judge St. Eve said that Ms. Fitzgerald’s admission that she sat on the school’s administrative council — which planned some religious activities for students — buttressed the school’s claim that her position fell under the “ministerial” category.
The Fitzgerald appeal ruling comes nearly a year after another Seventh Circuit panel ruled former employee Ms. Starkey was “a minister under the First Amendment’s ministerial exception” and dismissed her claims against Roncalli and the archdiocese.
“Religious schools exist to pass on the faith to the next generation, and to do that, they need the freedom to choose leaders who are fully committed to their religious mission,” said attorney Joseph Davis, of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the Catholic institutions. “The precedent keeps piling up: Catholic schools can ask Catholic school teachers and administrators to be fully supportive of Catholic teaching.”
Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, whose attorneys represented Ms. Fitzgerald, issued a statement Friday condemning the ruling.
“Shelly Fitzgerald, like most employees at religious organizations, wasn’t hired to minister to students or to preach the Catholic religion,” Ms. Laser said. “She was hired to provide secular guidance to students seeking to get into college. She should not have lost her civil rights simply because the secular work she performed was done at a religious school.”
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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