The US Supreme Court has upheld the right of Churches in the US to hire and fire their own ministers in a  ruling that is being hailed on the most important on religious freedom in several decades.

In a ruling yesterday, the rejected the stance taken by President Barack Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which would have allowed the Government to regulate who churches could and could not fire.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal, said this could have ultimately endangered the right of the Catholic Church to ordain only men as priests.

The case involved a teacher in a Lutheran parish church and school which attempted to stop her from filing a discrimination lawsuit against her employer on the basis of the church’s claim that the teacher is a religious minister.

US law has historically held that, under a legal doctrine known as the “ministerial exception”, churches have the right to hire whoever they see fit under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects religious freedom.

The teacher, Ms Cheryl Perich, was an elementary teacher at a Michigan school run by the Lutheran affiliated Hosanna-Tabor Church. In 2004, she was diagnosed with the debilitating sleep disorder narcolepsy and required several months of treatment before she was able to attempt to work again.

In that time, the school filled her position with a substitute, and due to doubts surrounding her ability to meet the demands of the classroom setting, strongly suggested to Ms Perich that she not return.

Ms Perich threatened to sue the school for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. The school responded by dismissing her.

The school pointed out that Ms Perich was employed by a private Lutheran school as a “called” teacher. The church regards “called” teachers as having been called to their vocation by God through a congregation, and such teachers must satisfy certain academic requirements.

This can require candidates to take eight courses of theological study, obtain the endorsement of their local Synod district, and pass an oral examination by a faculty committee. After this, a teacher receives the formal title “Minister of Religion, Commissioned.” 

Because of this, the mere suggestion that Ms Perich violated some aspect of the Lutheran Church’s bylaws was sufficient grounds to dismiss her, and the action was not subject to the anti-discriminatory laws that govern secular employees.

The Obama administration urged the court to embrace a line of analysis that would have virtually eliminated the ministerial exception.

Leondra Kruger, an assistant solicitor general, said the government was basing its argument on a section of the First Amendment that guarantees the freedom of individuals to associate with each other.

On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the “ministerial exception” was to be found in the religious freedom clause of the Constitution, and did protect the Lutheran school in the case.

He ruled that, given the formal title given Ms Perich by the church, “the substance reflected in that title, her own use of that title, and the important religious functions she performed for the Church—we conclude that Perich was a minister covered by the ministerial exception”.

On that basis, he continued “the First Amendment requires dismissal of this employment discrimination suit against her religious employer. 

“The EEOC and Perich originally sought an order reinstating Perich to her former position as a called teacher. By requiring the Church to accept a minister it did not want, such an order would have plainly violated the Church’s freedom under the Religion Clauses to select its own ministers.”

In the course of the hearing, senior Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia described the Administration’s stance as “amazing”.

Justice Scalia said: “We are talking here about the free exercise clause and about the establishment clause, and you say they have no special application?”

Several justices expressed concern that the suit would involve the government in an examination of the Lutheran church’s conflict-resolution policy and its desire to have commissioned ministers teaching in Lutheran schools.

Justice Stephen Breyer asked Ms Kruger how the government differentiated between Perich’s Lutheran case and the case of a woman who might sue the Catholic Church for gender discrimination for limiting the priesthood to men.

“The government’s general interest in eradicating discrimination in the workplace is simply not sufficient to justify changing the way that the Catholic Church chooses its priests, based on gender roles that are rooted in religious doctrine,” Kruger said.

“But the interests in this [Lutheran] case are quite different,” she said. “The government has a compelling and indeed overriding interest in ensuring that individuals are not prevented from coming to the government with information about illegal conduct”.