WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday said two parochial school teachers could not contest their firings in federal court because of the constitutional protection allowing religious organizations to choose who teaches the faith.
The 7-2 decision affirms the "ministerial exception" that protects religious organizations from some lawsuits invoking federal anti-discrimination laws. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco had said two teachers could proceed with their lawsuits against Catholic schools in California.
One teacher alleged age discrimination, and another, now deceased and represented by her husband, said she was fired after informing the school that she had breast cancer.
"The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission," Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote for the majority.
"Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate."
Conservatives on the Supreme Court have been more broadly supportive of religious rights and organizations. Last week, the court ruled that states that aid private schools may not exclude religious ones.
The teacher cases asked the court for further guidance on when an employee of a religious organization should be considered secular and, thus, able to take advantage of anti-discrimination laws - or religious, and thus unable to do so.
In a unanimous decision in 2012, the court said the "ministerial exception" meant that a former teacher at a Michigan Lutheran school could not sue her employer.
The decision said, in part, that the First Amendment protects religious organizations in deciding whom to employ to lead religious training. It added that courts should look not just at an employee's title, but also duties, in deciding whether religious instruction was an important function of the job.
The Catholic schools took the position that "if the individual employee performs even a single religious function, that employee would be covered under the ministerial exception as a 'minister,' " said a brief filed by Agnes Morrissey-Berru, who sued alleging age discrimination against Our Lady of Guadalupe School in the Los Angeles area.
In the other case, Kristen Biel sued St. James School in Torrance. She said her contract was not renewed in 2014 after she told school officials that she was being treated for breast cancer. Biel sued under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
The cases are Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel.