E.E.O.C. v. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
| Citation | 651 F.2d 277 |
| Decision Date | 17 July 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-1370,80-1370 |
| Parties | 26 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 558, 26 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 32,017 EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTHWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Defendant-Appellee. . Unit A |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
Melissa Langa, Lutz Alexander Prager, E.E.O.C., Washington, D.C., for plaintiff-appellant.
Garrett & Stahala, Steve M. King, J. Jenkins Garrett, Fort Worth, Tex., for defendant-appellee.
Lee Boothby, Berrien Springs, Mich., amicus curiae.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Before CHARLES CLARK and GEE, Circuit Judges, and SPEARS *, District Judge.
This case requires us to balance the interest of the federal government in enforcing Title VII against the first amendment rights of a religious institution of higher learning. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) appeals the judgment of the district court denying its efforts to compel submission of the Higher Education Staff Information Report (EEO-6). Following the standards set out in E.E.O.C. v. Mississippi College, 626 F.2d 477 (5th Cir. 1980), we affirm in part, and, in part, reverse and remand. 485 F.Supp. 255.
The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (Seminary) is a Texas non-profit corporation located in Forth Worth, Texas. 1 According to the Seminary's bylaws, it is owned, operated, and controlled by the Southern Baptist Convention (Convention), a voluntary association of Southern Baptist churches, incorporated in Georgia. The Convention elects the Seminary's trustees, dictates its purpose, and provides sixty percent of its financial support. As announced by the Convention, the Seminary's objective is "to provide theological education, with the Bible as the center of the curriculum for God-called men and women to meet the need for trained leadership in the work of the churches." As described by Dr. Robert Naylor, President Emeritus of the Seminary, its relationship with local Southern Baptist churches is more functional than structural: "The churches are the source, of course, of the Seminary, provide its constituency and use its product." The Seminary offers degrees only in theology, religious education, and church music; the curriculum is not to be expanded to "provide strictly secular education," according to its bylaws. The Convention does not allow the Seminary to charge tuition.
The approximately 1450 seminarians must meet three requirements of admission beyond the ordinary academic standards. Each applicant must represent that he or she has received a divine appointment to Christian ministry, the spouse (if any) of each prospective student must express a conviction that the student has received such a "call," and the local church of which the candidate is a member must pass a resolution acknowledging his or her personal integrity and commitment to the Christian faith and recommending the individual for admission to the Seminary. Thus, no matter how superior one's academic ability is, religious commitment is the quality that determines admission.
The procedures and criteria governing the Seminary's employment decisions reflect the nature of the Seminary and are the part of the Seminary's operation with which the EEOC is concerned. The Seminary's employees may be divided into three main categories: faculty, administrative staff, and support personnel.
Article VI of the Seminary's bylaws begins: "It shall be the policy of the Seminary to strive for and maintain a faculty composed of persons of unquestionable Christian character, positive and consecrated Christian attitudes, faithful allegiance to the Baptist faith, highest possible scholastic attainments and aptitude for teaching." According to Dr. Russell Dilday, who at the time of trial was the President of the Seminary, the order of criteria in this provision and in a policy statement entitled "Criteria for Evaluation of Faculty," adopted by the faculty in 1966, is not accidental: scholastic attainments are listed third because of "greater importance than that is the individual's personal characteristics, his relationship to the Lord, the church, and his activities within the denomination." Evidence of this nature caused the district court to find that: "Members of the faculty and administration of (the) seminary are considered ministers and are hired, assigned, advanced, tenured, evaluated and terminated on predominately religious criteria." And again, "Recruitment of faculty and administrators is viewed as a divinely guided 'spiritual quest' mutually pursued by the Seminary and the prospective employee."
The district court also found that the support personnel "perform a bona fide religious and educational function." Since ninety-five percent of these positions are filled by students and spouses of students and faculty, there is a built-in qualification for most of the support personnel. Undisputed testimony reveals that the remaining twenty-two full-time support personnel must be compatible with the "Seminary family," and must display an appreciation for and participation in the mission of the Seminary.
In sum, as found by the district court, the "Seminary regards its employment decisions as divinely guided assessments of each employee's suitability for the position he will occupy in relation to the students and as a representative of the institution ...."
Section 709(c) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, codified in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(c), provides in part:
(c) Every employer, employment agency, and labor organization subject to this subchapter shall (1) make and keep such records relevant to the determinations of whether unlawful employment practices have been or are being committed, (2) preserve such records for such periods, and (3) make such reports therefrom as the (EEOC) shall prescribe by regulation or order, after public hearing, as reasonable, necessary, or appropriate for the enforcement of this subchapter or the regulations or orders thereunder.
Pursuant to the authority of this section, the EEOC promulgated the following regulation:
On or before November 30, 1975, and biennially thereafter, every public and private institution of higher education having fifteen (15) or more employees shall file with the Commission or its delegate executed copies of Higher Education Staff Information Report EEO-6 in conformity with the directions set forth in the form and accompanying instructions. Every institution of higher education shall retain at all times, for a period of three years a copy of the most recently filed Report EEO-6 ....
29 C.F.R. § 1602.50 (1980).
Since the burden of filing this report is discussed herein, we shall briefly describe it. The report is denominated "Higher Education Staff Information (EEO-6)," and consists of six letter-size pages. It first requires an identification of the institution and any parent institution. The filing institution is required to indicate whether it has a contract with the federal government and the approximate dollar amount of any such contract. 2 The institution must reveal the general job description, length of employment contract, salary bracket, gender, and race or national origin of every employee. This information is not linked to the name of any specific employee, but is rather revealed by means of a complex chart. By the same method, the tenure status of various faculty positions is correlated with the gender and race information of those who hold these positions. The number of "full time staff paid in full from 'soft money' sources" is to be indicated. The same information required regarding full-time, permanent employees also is required for temporary and part-time employees.
The Seminary refused to file EEO-6. The EEOC brought suit to compel compliance pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(c). The district court, finding that the application of Title VII to any aspect of the employment relationship between the Seminary and its employees leads to excessive governmental entanglement with religion violative of the establishment clause and infringes the Seminary's rights under the free exercise clause of the first amendment, refused to compel the Seminary to file the EEO-6 forms.
This case is quite similar to E.E.O.C. v. Mississippi College, 626 F.2d 477 (5th Cir. 1980). The parties assert and we recognize that there are three major areas of factual distinctions between this case and Mississippi College. The first concerns the nature of the institutions. We noted in Mississippi College that the "evidence presented to the district court makes it readily apparent that the character and purposes of the college are pervasively sectarian." Id. at 487. The character and purposes of the Seminary are wholly sectarian. This factual distinction is pertinent not only to the applicability of Mississippi College, but also to the test for excessive governmental entanglement. See Part III A, infra. The Seminary's role is vital to the Southern Baptist Church. No one would argue that excessive intrusion into the process of calling ministers to serve a local church is constitutionally permissible. The Convention's hiring of faculty and other personnel to train ministers for local churches is equally central to the religious mission and entitled to no less protection under the first amendment.
The second distinction is that the subpoena challenged in Mississippi College imposed a broader compliance burden than do the EEO-6 reports required here. The subpoena demanded a list of all staff showing name, race, sex, religion, job description, pay, and educational level. Information pertaining to faculty recruiting and promotions, and access to all applications for faculty and administrative positions during the period in issue were also required. See id. at 480 n. 3. The...
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