Court says professor at Christian college not a ‘minister’

Published 9:00 am Sunday, March 14, 2021

Court says professor at Christian college not a ‘minister’

WENHAM, Mass. — The state’s highest court ruled that a former Gordon College professor who said she was wrongly denied a promotion can proceed with a discrimination case against the Christian school because she is not a “minister.”

The Christian college with fewer than 2,000 students claimed everyone on its payroll was a “ministerial employee” and thus not covered by anti-discrimination laws.

But in a unanimous ruling, the seven-member Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said social work professor Margaret DeWeese-Boyd is not a minister because she did not teach religion, lead her students in prayer, take students to chapel, deliver sermons or perform other duties deemed by the U.S. Supreme Court to be characteristic of that title.

If all employees of religious institutions are considered ministerial, the court said, the impact on anti-discrimination laws would be “enormous.”

Hilary Schwab, an attorney representing DeWeese-Boyd, said the decision has “broad implications” for employees of religious institutions who don’t have expressly religious duties.

DeWeese-Boyd sued the college in 2017, accusing its president and provost of discrimination for denying her promotion to full professor because of her vocal opposition to the school’s LBGTQ policies. She lost her job two years later, when the school eliminated its social work major.

The college says she should be subject to an exemption for religious institutions from discrimination laws. The exception is designed to protect those institutions from government interference in hiring employees to “minister to their faithful.”

In its ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court said the case presented a “difficult decision” regarding two principles — someone’s right to be protected against discrimination, and a religious institution’s First Amendment right to choose employees to propagate religious doctrine.

Gordon College spokesman Rick Sweeney said the school disagreed with the finding, though the ruling did reaffirm the college is a religious institution.

“Gordon’s mission remains unchanged,” Sweeney said in an email. “The foundational basis of Gordon’s educational experience has been and will continue to be the integration of faith and learning as a distinctly Christian institution.”

Sweeney said the college would not comment further because the case is ongoing.

He said Gordon is “keeping all legal options open.”