Supreme Court to Decide How Far Religious Freedom Protections Extend for Parochial Schools

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide how far religious freedom protections extend in parochial classrooms after agreeing on Wednesday to hear the cases of two California teachers who claim their firings were discriminatory. In both instances, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit sided with the teachers.

Attorneys with Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the two Catholic elementary campuses, said the appeals court decision is tantamount to giving the government control over who provides religious instruction in parochial schools, which are constitutionally entitled to “choose ministers that embody their faith without government interference.”

Both schools argue that since a significant part of their classroom duties dealt with religious instruction, the teachers are “ministerial” employees as covered by Supreme Court precedent, and thus exempt from laws that extend to other employees, according to an article in USA Today.

“Parents trust Catholic schools to assist them in one of their most important duties: forming the faith of their children,” Montserrat Alvarado, vice president and executive director for Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a news release. “If courts can second-guess a Catholic school’s judgment about who should teach religious beliefs to fifth graders, then neither Catholics nor any other religious…