Young v. Northern Illinois Conference of United Methodist Church, 93-2157

Citation21 F.3d 184
Decision Date07 April 1994
Docket NumberNo. 93-2157,93-2157
Parties64 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 633, 64 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 42,953 Darreyl N. YOUNG, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The NORTHERN ILLINOIS CONFERENCE OF UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, The Board of Ordained Ministry and R. Sheldon Duecker, as the Presiding Bishop of the Board of Ordained Ministry, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Gerald A. Goldman, Arthur R. Ehrlich (argued), Goldman & Marcus, Chicago, IL, for plaintiff-appellant.

Gregory N. Freerksen, Samuel W. Witwer, Jr. (argued), Jennifer Kae Poltrock, Witwer, Burlage, Poltrock & Giampietro, Chicago, IL, for defendants-appellees.

Before FAIRCHILD, MANION, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

Darreyl Young is a black female. After several years serving as a probationary minister of the United Methodist Church, she applied for a promotion to the position of "Clergy Member in Full Connection" or "Elder." A review panel of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church denied her request for a promotion and terminated her employment on March 4, 1992.

She notified the EEOC of her termination. It found no probable cause to proceed against the United Methodist Church. 1 It issued her a right to sue letter, and she filed a complaint in the district court.

Young's complaint alleges race discrimination, sex discrimination, and retaliation in violation of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e, et seq. She claims that she was denied the promotion and fired because of her race and sex, and because of her "opposition to [the United Methodist defendant's] discriminatory practices." Specifically, she claims that the United Methodist Church did not follow the procedure it had previously "always" followed in such cases.

She requested the district court to grant her several forms of relief. First, she asked the court to order the United Methodist defendant to reinstate her as a probationary minister and award her back pay and other benefits. Second, she asked the court to order the United Methodist defendant to re-examine her application. Third, she sought compensatory damages, punitive damages, fees, and costs.

The United Methodist defendant responded with a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. It claimed that the First Amendment forbids government interference with "the internal ecclesiastical workings and discipline of religious bodies." The district court found that it could not decide the case without reaching the constitutional issue, and that the First Amendment denied it subject matter jurisdiction. It granted the motion to dismiss on that basis.

This appeal followed and calls for an examination of the district court's constitutional ruling, that the First Amendment denied it subject matter jurisdiction. Therefore we review the court's grant of the motion to dismiss de novo. Sequoia Books, Inc. v. Ingemunson, 901 F.2d 630, 633 (7th Cir.1990).

Young, to prevail, must show that the First Amendment does not preclude subject matter jurisdiction, as the district court found. To do so, she argues that "there is no doubt" that Title VII is applicable to religious organizations. In support, Young cites to E.E.O.C. v. Mississippi College, 626 F.2d 477 (5th Cir.1980). She claims in her brief that this case "applied Title VII to [a] religious organization[ ], the First Amendment notwithstanding." This is a misstatement of the case. The Fifth Circuit did not act "notwithstanding" the Free Exercise Clause. Rather, it found that the Free Exercise Clause was not implicated because "the College is not a church and its faculty members are not ministers." Id. at 485. The Fifth Circuit in Mississippi College cited to its own prior case, McClure v. Salvation Army, 460 F.2d 553, 559-60 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 896, 93 S.Ct. 132, 34 L.Ed.2d 153 (1972), which had "concluded that matters touching the relationship between a church and its ministers, including the selection of a minister, determination of salary, and assignment of duties and location, are matters of church administration and government and thus purely of ecclesiastical cognizance." Mississippi College, 626 F.2d at 485.

Young attempts to read Mississippi College as establishing a general proposition that Title VII "applies to religious organizations." But the case stands for no such thing. It explicitly exempts "matters touching the relationship between a church and its ministers." And that is precisely what is at stake in this case.

In support of her general claim that Title VII may be applied to religious organizations, Young also cites to Rayburn v. General Conf. of Seventh Day Adventists, 772 F.2d 1164, 1169 (4th Cir.1985), to demonstrate that the elimination of discrimination is a compelling state interest "of the highest order." This is unquestionably the case. But Rayburn, after noting this truism, goes on to state that:

[C]ourts must distinguish incidental burdens on free exercise in the service of a compelling state interest from burdens where the "inroad on religious liberty" is too substantial to be permissible.... This case is of the latter sort: introduction of government standards to the selection of spiritual leaders would significantly, and perniciously, rearrange the relationship between church and state. While an unfettered church may create minimal infidelity to the objective of Title VII, it provides maximum protection of the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religious beliefs.

Id. at 1169 (emphasis added). In other words, in a direct clash of "highest order" interests, the interest in protecting the free exercise of religion embodied in the First Amendment to the Constitution prevails over the interest in ending discrimination embodied in Title VII.

In Rayburn the plaintiff alleged sex discrimination when her application to serve as an "associate in pastoral care" was rejected. The court noted that even though the plaintiff was not seeking a position as an ordained minister, the "ministerial exception" the Fifth Circuit enunciated in McClure "does not depend upon ordination but upon the function of the position." Rayburn at 1168.

Having determined that the position was "important to the spiritual and pastoral mission of the church," the Rayburn court held that "the free exercise clause of the First Amendment protects the act of a decision rather than a motivation behind it. In these sensitive areas, the state may no more require a minimum basis in doctrinal reasoning than it may supervise doctrinal content." Id. at 1169 (emphasis added). See also Scharon v. St. Lukes Episcopal Presbyterian Hosp., 929 F.2d 360, 363 (8th Cir.1991) (adopting "act of decision" language when affirming summary judgment against plaintiff who alleged age and sex discrimination when fired from position as chaplain).

Contrary to Young's assertions Rayburn and Mississippi College actually indicate that Title VII may not be applied in cases such as the one before us because the First Amendment will not allow it. Nevertheless, Young forges ahead claiming that her complaint "only involves secular issues and will not require any entanglements over religious issues." The district court found to the contrary, relying in part on the case of Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 717, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 2384, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976), for the proposition that "the composition of a church's hierarchy is also primarily an ecclesiastical matter left for the church's sole resolution."

Young attempts to distinguish Milivojevich by arguing that it holds only that a First Amendment violation occurs when a court "probes deeply" and makes "extensive inquiry into religious law and policy" when reviewing decisions of the "Highest Ecclesiastical Tribunal within a Church Hierarchical Polity." If Young's position were correct, we would have to determine how "deep" and how "extensive" an analysis the district court was required to make before we could decide if the free Exercise Clause is implicated.

The Milivojevich case demonstrates that such an analysis is unwarranted. In Milivojevich the Illinois Supreme Court had overturned the defrocking and suspension of an Orthodox bishop by his own church. The Illinois court based its decision on certain language in the case of Gonzalez v. Archbishop, 280 U.S. 1, 50 S.Ct. 5, 74 L.Ed. 131 (1929), which stated that the federal courts could review ecclesiastical decisions where there was "fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness." The court found that the church in that case had made an arbitrary decision. Milivojevich alleged, exactly as Young does in the instant case, that his church "had not followed its own laws and procedures in arriving" at its decision. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 713, 96 S.Ct. at 2382.

In reversing, the Supreme Court first noted that the "arbitrariness" exception in Gonzalez was dicta and had no force. Therefore, the binding precedent was the old rule set out in Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 13 Wall. 679, 20 L.Ed. 666 (1872), which held that:

It is of the essence of religious unions, and of their right to establish tribunals for the decision of questions arising among themselves, that those decisions should be binding in all cases of ecclesiastical cognizance, subject only to such appeals as the organism itself provides for.

Watson, 80 U.S. at 729, 13 Wall. at 728-29. Therefore, the Milivojevich court concluded,

[n]o "arbitrariness" exception--in...

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