This is central to the decision linked to below.
I selected three sources that described it in different ways. It also contains history of its development.
From the Harvard Law Review
- Of Priests, Pupils, and Procedure: The Ministerial Exception as a Cause Of Action for On-Campus Student Ministries.
In 1972, the Fifth Circuit recognized a First Amendment right for religious ministries to select their own religious ministers and manage the employment relationship free from government regulation. This right was initially framed as an exemption from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, religion, race, and a number of other criteria. This exception came to be recognized as the ministerial exception, and it has since expanded to protect the employment decisions of religious institutions from government interference in more than simply the Title VII context.
Over the next forty years, every federal court of appeals adopted this doctrine (as did many state supreme courts), and in 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court officially recognized the ministerial exception in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. There, a teacher at a Lutheran school argued that the school had fired her because of her physical disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the Court held that her suit was barred by the ministerial exception, which it unanimously declared to be rooted in both the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Since the Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor, lower courts have continued to grapple with the ministerial exception.
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From Wikipedia
- Click here for the link.
The ministerial exception, sometimes known as the "ecclesiastical exception," is a legal doctrine in the United States barring the application of anti-discrimination laws to religious institutions' employment relationships with its "ministers." As explained by the Supreme Court in the landmark case Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. E.E.O.C., the exception is drawn from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and seeks to both (1) safeguard religious groups' "freedom . . . to select their own ministers," a principle rooted in the Free Exercise Clause, and (2) prevent "government involvement in ecclesiastical decisions," a prohibition stemming from the Establishment Clause. When applied, the exception operates to give religious institutions an affirmative defense when sued for discrimination by employees who qualify as "ministers;"for example, female priests cannot sue the Catholic church to force their hiring. However, exactly which types of employees should qualify as a "ministers," and thus how broadly the exception should apply, is the subject of current litigation before the Supreme Court.
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From the First Amendment Encyclopedia.
- Click here for the entry.
The ministerial exception furthers the purposes of the First Amendment free exercise and establishment clauses by barring legal claims against church bodies by their employees who carry out religious functions.
It was first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Employment Opportunity Division (2012).
