Ave Maria Law School invokes ministerial exception in wrongful termination suit

[Robert Tuttle]

I agree with Doug - there are a number of cases involving religious
high schools that have made similar claims about teachers of generally
secular subjects -- arguing that all teachers in the school are
expected to infuse religious values into all subjects -- but as far as
I know those schools have uniformly lost.

Bob Tuttle

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 3:39 PM, Douglas Laycock<laycockd at umich.edu> wrote:
> Similar arguments were made early on in EEOC v. Mississippi College, 626
> F.2d 477, 484-85 (5th Cir. 1980).  No ministerial exception because "the
> College is not a church and its faculty members are not ministers."
> Professors of theology and seminary faculty are within the ministerial
> exception.  EEOC v. Catholic University (D.C. Cir 1996) and EEOC v.
> Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (5th Cir. 1981 or so).  Faculty in
> secular subjects have been held outside it, and it is hard to see how law
> professors would be any different.
>
> Quoting Ed Brayton <stcynic at gmail.com>:
>
>> http://avewatch.com/?p=136
>>
>>
>>
>> This strikes me as highly unlikely to succeed, especially since the law
>> school had to have represented to the ABA many things that would undermine
>> their claim to the exception. Thoughts from the scholars on the list?
>>
>>
>>
>> Ed Brayton
>>
>>
>
>
>
> Douglas Laycock
> Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
> University of Michigan Law School
> 625 S. State St.
> Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
>   734-647-9713
>
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-- 
Robert Tuttle
Professor of Law
David R. and Sherry Kirschner Berz Research Professor of Law & Religion
GWU Law School