Ave Maria Law School invokes ministerial exception in wrongfultermination suit

[Alan Leigh Armstrong]

When hired, did the professors have to sign a "statement of faith: or  
was their a requirement in the contract or the faculty handbook? If  
not, how does the professor know the standard??

I signed a statement of faith as an adjunct at Trinity law School,  
part of Trinity International University. Trinity started out as the  
seminary for the Evangelical Free church in America
If they did sign a statement of faith or were otherwise given notice  
of the standard, and later repudiate it, wouldn't that be a breach of  
contract and therefore actionable without reference to freedom of  
religion?
However, if they have a slightly different interpretation of a tenant  
of the faith, say the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, then we  
could have the court trying to decide theological questions—a place  
the court cannot go.

Alan Armstrong

Law Office of Alan Leigh Armstrong
Huntington Beach CA 92648-6006




On Jun 30, 2009, at 9:53 PM, stevesan at umich.edu wrote:

> Didn't the Court reject a similar sort of expressive association  
> argument in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, the military recruiters case?  I seem  
> to recall it said that an asserted right by a law school not to be  
> forced to associate with people or ideas it found disagreeable was  
> simply too attenuated from the primary purpose of the First  
> Amendment in the higher education context: to protect a robust  
> marketplace of ideas.
>
> Steve Sanders
>
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Duncan <nebraskalawprof at yahoo.com>
>
> Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:28:17
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law  
> Academics<religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu>
> Subject: Re: Ave Maria Law School invokes ministerial exception in  
> wrongful
> 	termination suit
>
>
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