Appeals Court Upholds Catholic School’s Right to Fire Counselor in Same-Sex Marriage

The Roncalli High School in Indianapolis in September 2018. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

A federal appeals court has granted a Catholic high school in Indiana the legal right to fire a guidance counselor because she was in a same-sex marriage.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. 7th Court of Appeals said in a July 13 ruling that Roncalli High School and the Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis can refuse to renew Michelle Fitzgerald’s contract for being in a same-sex marriage because it was contrary to the school’s religious mission.

The ruling is based on a “ministerial exception,” which lets religious institutions dismiss certain types of employees for their personal beliefs. Initially, the exception applied to staff who worked directly on religious matters, but a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2020 expanded that to include teachers by ruling that religious schools are exempt from most employment discrimination claims.

“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission,” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

“Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate,” Mr. Alito added.

In 2018, after school authorities discovered Ms. Fitzgerald was married to a woman, they gave her several options, including resigning, being fired, or dissolving her same-sex marriage, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is part of her legal team.

Ms. Fitzgerald refused to dissolve the same-sex marriage or resign, and so was placed on administrative leave and asked to stay away from the school campus. Her contract was later not renewed, prompting Ms. Fitzgerald to sue.

Her initial complaint (pdf) alleged “wrongful and unlawful discrimination” based on sex, while the school raised the ministerial exception as a defense.

A district court sided with the school and Ms. Fitzgerald appealed. Part of her argument against the school was that she was performing secular duties and was not hired to minister to students.

But on July 13, the 7th Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s ruling that the school had the right to fire Ms. Fitzgerald because she did, in fact, perform some religious duties and so could be dismissed for religious reasons.

“Our precedent makes clear that Fitzgerald was a minister at Roncalli and that the ministerial exception bars this suit,” wrote Circuit Judge Amy J. St. Eve, a George W. Bush appointee, in the panel opinion.

“A fact-specific inquiry remains necessary in cases where the ministerial exception is asserted as a defense to balance the enforcement of our laws against the protections of our Constitution,” Ms. St. Eve wrote.

“Despite Fitzgerald’s attempts to undermine her contributions, there is no genuine dispute that Fitzgerald participated in some of the religious aspects of the Administrative Counsel,” the judge wrote, noting that Ms. Fitzgerald’s participation in the group made her one of a handful of key, visible leaders at the school.

The ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions protecting the leadership choices of faith-based schools, including a 2022 federal court ruling against another Roncalli High School guidance counselor, whose contract was not renewed because she was found to have been in a same-sex marriage.

Reactions

The appeals court ruling drew mixed reactions.

Becket Law, a legal group that specializes in religious freedom cases, hailed the court’s decision, saying that it confirms the prohibition of the government to interfere with a faith-based school’s right to pick leaders who will impart religious teachings to students.

“Religious schools exist to pass on the faith to the next generation, and to do that, they need the freedom to choose leaders who are fully committed to their religious mission,” Becket Counsel Joseph Davis said in a statement obtained by The Epoch Times.

“The precedent keeps piling up: Catholic schools can ask Catholic school teachers and administrators to be fully supportive of Catholic teaching.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, denounced the decision, arguing that the ministerial exception is a court-created doctrine that circumvents civil rights laws and allows employers to unfairly discriminate against employees.

“These religious extremists are trying to expand a narrow, commonsense rule—meant to allow houses of worship to select their own clergy according to their own faith–into a broad license to circumvent civil rights laws and to discriminate,” Ms. Laser said in a statement.

“Shelly Fitzgerald, like most employees at religious organizations, wasn’t hired to minister to students or to preach the Catholic religion,“ Ms. Laser continued. ”She was hired to provide secular guidance to students seeking to get into college. She should not have lost her civil rights simply because the secular work she performed was done at a religious school.”

The appeals court’s decision comes after the Supreme Court last month ruled 6–3 in favor of a Christian website designer who said Colorado’s law requiring her to create websites to celebrate same-sex weddings infringed on her constitutional rights.

Artist and website designer Lorie Smith of 303 Creative complained she was being singled out by the Colorado human rights commission because, based on her religious faith, she does not support nontraditional marriage.

Ms. Smith took action when she discovered she was forbidden under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) to post a statement online explaining what content she was, and was not, willing to create.