Written by Don Byrd
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is holding a hearing today to examine recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding discrimination based on religion.
In CLS v Martinez, the Court held that publicly funded universities may prohibit student groups – even religious groups – from determining membership on the basis of religious belief or affiliation. And in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, the Court affirmed the right of a religious school to fire an employee with a ministerial role without being subject to civil rights laws.
Are these 2 ideas in conflict? One allows religious institutions the freedom to make personnel decisions based on religion. The other allows the state to bar religious student groups from making membership decisions based on religion.
While there are clearly some overlap in topic here, the distinctions are very important. Martinez was about student opportunities at a public university. There, the School of Law at UC-Hastings made a decision to allow all students to join all groups. The Court ruled that the all-comers policy was acceptable because it applied to all groups across campus, and thus did not infringe on the religious liberty of organizations. In Hosanna-Tabor, the arena was a religious, not a public institution. The Court ruled that otherwise generally applicable laws like employment discrimination measures too easily entangle the state in religious matters when applied there.
Some may find one or the other decision to have gone too far. The Baptist Joint Committee urged the court to reach a different decision in the Martinez case, and uphold the right of religious organizations to set membership criteria as an expression of religion. Many civil rights advocates were troubled by the Hosanna-Tabor ruling because it may allow religious institutions to improperly discriminate with impunity.
Regardless of one’s position on how to balance discrimination concerns with religious liberty principles, the Court seems to have moved the discussion on this issue with these two rulings. There also seems to be enough daylight between them to craft a coherent if nuanced statement of the current state of the law on this balance.
