A judge has barred Gordon College from using a “ministerial exception” defense in a lawsuit brought by a former professor who claims she was denied a promotion over her opposition to the evangelical institution’s policies on sexuality.
Judge Jeffrey T. Karp of the Massachusetts Superior Court ruled last week that Gordon College can’t avail itself of a legal doctrine that exempts religious institutions from employment discrimination laws.
The college, which was founded in 1889, was sued by former associate professor Margaret DeWeese-Boyd in 2017. Deweese-Boyd began working as an assistant professor with Gordon’s Social Work Department in the fall of 1999 and was later promoted to associate professor.
She claims that Gordon College Provost Janel Curry and President D. Michael Lindsay denied her promotion to full professorship in February 2017 even though the promotion was recommended by the faculty senate. She claims the denial came because of her advocacy against school policies related to LGBT individuals and extramarital sex.
In her lawsuit, the former professor argues that the school committed “associational and gender discrimination” in violation of the state’s Civil Rights Act in addition to breaching the “implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.” DeWeese-Boyd claimed that Lindsay and Curry aided and abetted “interference with her civil rights.”
The college filed a motion seeking a summary judgment from the court to determine whether the ministerial exception clause — as affirmed by the Supreme Court in its Hosanna-Tabor ruling from 2012 — barred Deweese-Boyd from suing on the basis of employment discrimination.
The ministerial exception is an affirmative defense grounded in the First Amendment that prevents the government from interfering with employment relationships between religious institutions and their ministerial employees.
SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith
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