EEOC v. Fremont Christian School
| Decision Date | 16 April 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. C-83-2619 WHO.,C-83-2619 WHO. |
| Citation | 609 F. Supp. 344 |
| Parties | EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff, v. FREMONT CHRISTIAN SCHOOL, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
David T. Kelley, E.E.O.C., San Francisco, Cal., Office of General Counsel, E.E.O.C., Washington, D.C., for plaintiff.
William B. Ball, Ball & Skelly, Harrisburg, Pa., for defendant.
The issue in this case raised by plaintiff, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (the "EEOC"), motion for summary judgment against defendant, Fremont Christian School (the "School"), is whether the School, which is owned and operated by the First Assembly of God Church (the "Church"), can, with impunity, discriminate against female employees by failing to provide them with health insurance benefits allowed male employees. Holding such discrimination violates Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ("Title VII"), as well as the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d) (the "Act"), and that the School's policy is not protected by the Free Exercise or Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, the Court grants the EEOC's motion for summary judgment.
The material facts in this case, as to which there is no genuine issue, are simple and may be briefly summarized as follows. The School is a private school providing instruction from preschool through the twelfth grade for approximately 1,500 students. There are 111 faculty members. The School curriculum emphasizes religious training, but also includes secular education such as math, science, history, english, home economics, and other courses available to students in nonsectarian schools.1
Personnel policies for the School are set by the governing board of the Church upon the recommendation of the school board. Each of these boards is comprised of nine elected members belonging to the Church plus a secretary, treasurer, and the senior church pastor, who serves as chairperson of the governing board.
Since March, 1975, the School has provided health insurance coverage to its full-time teachers and other employees. This insurance, however, is limited to employees who are the "head of the household," a role the Church believes, citing Scripture, can only be performed by the husband. The Church has chosen certain ways to give recognition to the husband as "head of the household." Among those is its provision for medical coverage for its employees. In effect, the restriction deprives female employees of health insurance benefits.2
At the outset, the Court considers the School's position that there are genuine issues of material fact and, therefore, summary judgment will not lie.
In ruling on a motion for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a), the court's function is to determine whether genuine issues of material fact are in dispute, and to grant summary judgment if no such issue exists, and if the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. v. First Finance Corp., 587 F.2d 1009 (9th Cir.1978); Fruehauf Corp. v. Royal Exchange Assurance of America, Inc., 704 F.2d 1168 (9th Cir.1983).
The School argues strenuously that a number of factual issues allegedly remain for adjudication, namely, that it must be allowed to show how it is shielded from the application of Title VII and the Act by the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment. First, the School must show that its employment practices are based on religious belief, i.e., that the policy at issue is rooted in the School's Free Exercise rights. Second, in conjunction with those rights, the School alleges that it must be accorded the opportunity to demonstrate the "injury to religious exercise" resulting from application of Title VII and the Act to its personnel policies. And, third, in seeking to assert the protection of the Establishment Clause, the School contends that the degree to which it is, or is not, a religious institution is a matter of fact, thus precluding summary judgment.
As authority for its overall position, the School relies on the precedent in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 215, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 1533, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) (), and in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963).
Subsequent to Yoder and Sherbert, however, the courts formulated a three-part test for determining whether a neutrally based statute, such as Title VII and the Act, may be applied to an institution that raises a Free Exercise claim to justify an otherwise discriminatory policy. EEOC v. Mississippi College, 626 F.2d 477 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 453 U.S. 912, 101 S.Ct. 3143, 69 L.Ed.2d 994 (1981), citing Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra, and Sherbert v. Verner, supra; EEOC v. Pacific Press Publishing Ass'n, 676 F.2d 1272 (9th Cir. 1982).3 And, in a similar vein, Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 2111, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971), sets forth a three-prong test for determining if a statute obstructs rights under the Establishment Clause.
The School alleges that Title VII and the Act do not apply to a policy grounded in religious belief, insofar as the School's personnel practices are shielded by the Free Exercise Clause. To determine whether a neutrally-based statute, such as Title VII and the Act, violates the Free Exercise Clause the court weighs three factors: (1) the magnitude of the statute's impact on the exercise of a religious belief; (2) the existence of a compelling state interest justifying the burden imposed upon the exercise of the religious belief; and (3) the extent to which recognition of an exemption from the statute would impede objectives sought to be advanced by the statute. Pacific Press, supra, 676 F.2d at 1279, citing EEOC v. Mississippi College, supra, 626 F.2d at 488, cert. denied, 453 U.S. 912, 101 S.Ct. 3143, 69 L.Ed.2d 994 (1981), citing Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra, and Sherbert v. Verner, supra.
As to the first prong of the Mississippi College test, the School alleges that subjecting its employment practices to Title VII and Equal Pay provisions will have a major impact on the exercise of its religious beliefs. The Court finds, however, that requiring the School to refrain from discriminating against female employees does not infringe the School's free exercise of its religious beliefs. This is particularly so in view of the fact that the female employees at the School are eligible for group life and disability insurance.4 If those practices do not undermine the School's religious goals, then it is inconceivable that providing health benefits to female employees will have the opposite effect.
Moreover, the School's wages and other usual conditions of employment are comparable for all employees, regardless of sex. Similarly, in Pacific Press, the nonprofit religious publishing house had a policy of paying wages without discrimination on the basis of sex, race, or national origin. Pacific Press, supra, 676 F.2d at 1279. Yet, in practice, the publishing house used a sexually discriminatory wage scale. In view of the disparity between policy and practice, the court held that:
"Enforcement of Title VII's equal pay provision does not and could not conflict with Adventist religious doctrines, nor does it prohibit an activity `rooted in religious belief.'"
Id. at 1279, citing Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra, 374 U.S. at 215, 92 S.Ct. at 1533.
Likewise, the School's policy of providing comparable wages to male and female employees, an implicit nondiscriminatory policy, coupled with female eligibility for group life and disability insurance, renders meritless the School's allegation of interference with its religious-based health insurance plan.
The second prong of the Free Exercise test, i.e., the existence of a compelling state interest, is readily apparent. By enacting Title VII and the Act, Congress clearly targeted the elimination of all forms of discrimination as a "highest priority." See S.Rep. No. 872, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. pt. 1, at 11, 24 (1964), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1964, 2355; see also Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 47, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 1019, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974).
Pacific Press, supra, 626 F.2d at 1280.
Finally, to permit the School to selectively distribute health insurance benefits, specifically on the basis of sex, would defeat Congress' intention to protect employees of religious institutions. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-1, Title VII § 702. Furthermore, the underlying purpose for enacting Title VII and the Act would be thwarted. As noted by the Pacific court, the effect would be to "withdraw Title VII's and the Act's protection from employees * * * affiliated with the * * * Church," including those who run the schools. Pacific Press, supra, 626 F.2d at 1280.
Altogether, equitable disbursement of health insurance coverage is not an impediment to the free exercise of the School's religious convictions. Thus, the School's allegation of immunity from Title VII and the Act is unfounded.
The School's second religious claim arises from the Establishment Clause. Contending that Title VII and Equal Pay liability would unduly entangle church and state, the School argues that the religious-based "head of the household" policy is immune from government regulation because the policy represents the School's Establishment Clause rights.
Examining statutes for Establishment Clause violations involves yet another three-part test: (1) the statute must have secular purpose; (2) the primary effect of ...
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