The Fourth Circuit Overturns Federal Court’s Decision And Finds That Administering Drama Class Is Not A Ministerial Task

Way back when, in September 2021, I wrote about the federal court decision in Billard v. Charlotte Catholic High School, which ruled in favor of a gay former drama teacher who lost his job at a Catholic high school after the teacher announced all over social media that he and his male partner were getting married.

That court rejected the application of the “ministerial exception.”

The employee in that case, Mr. Lonnie Billard, was a drama teacher and then a sub at said Catholic high school. He even won awards during his tenure, and students consistently nominated him as teacher of the year.

But…when staff and parents saw Mr. Billard’s posts, they wanted him fired, and the school agreed.

Mr. Billard sued, alleging sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”).

The United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina did not agree with Mr. Billard’s termination.

Rejecting the “ministerial” exception, the court relied on the landmark decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that “an individual’s homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. …because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”

The District Court’s decision is here.

The Ministerial Exception.

The ministerial exception (which I explained in full here) protects religious institutions who employ people to perform tasks central to their (the institutions’) religious missions, even if the tasks themselves do not advertise their religious nature.

The exception bars Title VII discrimination claims filed by employees who serve in clergy-based roles for a religious employer.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Overturned The Lower Court’s Ruling, Determining That The Ministerial Exception Applied.

Why would they do that?

Well, the 4th Circuit panel based its reversal upon an analysis of two U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) cases defining and explaining the ministerial exception: Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012) (“Hosanna-Tabor”) and Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020) (“Our Lady of Guadalupe”).

In Hosanna-Tabor, the Court determined that the exception applied to a “called” teacher at a Lutheran school offering a religion-centered education and dismissed the teacher’s employment discrimination suit against the school. The Court emphasized the teacher’s ministerial title and training, job duties, the role this teacher played in conveying the Church’s message, and the teacher’s role in carrying out its mission.

In Our Lady of Guadalupe, and considering Hosanna-Tabor, the Court found that the teachers performed critical religious duties in connection with the school’s religious mission. In fact, the school expected teachers to model and promote Catholic faith and morals, pray with their students, attend Mass with their students, and teach a full range of secular subjects.

Ok, With You So Far…But What About This Case?

Here, the Fourth Circuit found that the relationship between our Mr. Billard and the school mirrored the one between lay teachers and their schools in Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Mr. Billard, like the teachers in Our Lady of Guadalupe, was evaluated based on the degree to which he integrated faith throughout his classes, including his ability to teach subjects in a way that was “agreeable with Catholic thought.”

Photo by Antoinette Plessis on Unsplash

A good soldier, Mr. Billard religiously (pun intended) coordinated with religion teachers to ensure that his classes and plays he put on with the kids were “in tune” with religious teachings.

In this case, classes were very religion-based, with teachers like Mr. Billard conforming their instruction to Christian thought and providing a classroom environment consistent with Catholicism. Indeed, the school considered it vital to its religious mission that its teachers bring a Catholic perspective to Shakespeare and the Bible. Additionally, Mr. B occasionally filled in for religion teachers, indicating the importance of his role to the school’s religious mission.

The court rationalized that secular tasks like teaching English and drama could be so imbued with religious significance that they implicate the ministerial exception.

The court also noted that teachers differ from other employees (such as a food server)— teachers serve as messengers or teachers of the faith, whose responsibilities are at the heart of the mission of a private religious school like the one in this case.

As a teacher, the Fourth Circuit found that Mr. Billard lay in this narrow category of employees who “serve as a messenger or teacher of the faith” covered by the ministerial exception, and the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded the case with instructions to enter judgment for the school.

Employer Takeaways

As SCOTUS stated in Our Lady of Guadalupe, ministerial exception cases are highly fact intensive and depend on and require the consideration of many factors and all relevant circumstances.

It is a purportedly narrow exception.

Before taking an adverse action against an employee based on the ministerial exception, religious institutional employers must consider if a particular position falls within the exception’s scope.

There is no one-size-fits-all determination.