#MeToo Meets the Ministerial Exception: Sexual Harassment Claims by Clergy and the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses

Ira C. Lupu, Robert W. Tuttle, #MeToo Meets the Ministerial Exception: Sexual Harassment Claims by Clergy and the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses

“In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC (2012), the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment create a “ministerial exception” to certain employment laws. The ministerial exception bars claims by clergy of wrongful dismissal by religious institutions. In the years before Hosanna-Tabor, however, courts had ruled in four prominent decisions – two state, and two federal – that suits by clergy for sexual harassment based on a pervasively hostile environment could go forward, notwithstanding the ministerial exception. The rise of the #MeToo movement invites new and more detailed consideration of the tension between the policies behind sexual harassment law and the constitutional values protected by the ministerial exception.”