Section 7

Citation: Section 7
Parent Document: Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2020-06-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4760997/bostock-v-clayton-county/ ↗

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based employment practices of numerous churches, syna-
gogues, mosques, and other religious institutions.”51 They
argue that “[r]eligious organizations need employees who
actually live the faith,”52 and that compelling a religious or-
ganization to employ individuals whose conduct flouts the
tenets of the organization’s faith forces the group to com-
municate an objectionable message.
   This problem is perhaps most acute when it comes to the
employment of teachers. A school’s standards for its faculty
“communicate a particular way of life to its students,” and
a “violation by the faculty of those precepts” may under-
mine the school’s “moral teaching.”53 Thus, if a religious
school teaches that sex outside marriage and sex reassign-
ment procedures are immoral, the message may be lost if
the school employs a teacher who is in a same-sex relation-
ship or has undergone or is undergoing sex reassignment.
Yet today’s decision may lead to Title VII claims by such
teachers and applicants for employment.
   At least some teachers and applicants for teaching posi-
tions may be blocked from recovering on such claims by the
“ministerial exception” recognized in Hosanna-Tabor Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U. S. 171
(2012). Two cases now pending before the Court present
the question whether teachers who provide religious in-
struction can be considered to be “ministers.”54 But even if
teachers with those responsibilities qualify, what about
other very visible school employees who may not qualify for

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