Starkey v. Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 July 2022
• Docket Number: 21-2524
• Parties: Lynn STARKEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF INDIANAPOLIS, INC. and Roncalli High School, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

41 F.4th 931

Lynn STARKEY, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF INDIANAPOLIS, INC. and Roncalli High School, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 21-2524

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 16, 2022

Decided July 28, 2022

Kathleen A. DeLaney, Attorney, Matthew R. Gutwein, Attorney, DELANEY & DELANEY LLC, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiff - Appellant.

Matthew R. Gutwein, Attorney, Daniel Howard Blomberg, Attorney, Joseph Charles Davis, Attorney, Abigail Eden Smith, Attorney, BECKET FUND FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, Washington, DC, John S. Mercer, Attorney, WOOTON HOY, LLC, Greenfield, IN, for Defendants - Appellees.

Before Easterbrook, Brennan, and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.

Brennan, Circuit Judge.

The ministerial exception, grounded in the First Amendment's Religion Clauses, bars interference with the selection and control of a religious organization's ministers. The issues here are whether a guidance counselor at a Catholic high school is a minister, and whether the ministerial exception applies to state law claims made by the guidance counselor.

I

Roncalli High School ("Roncalli") is a Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. Its mission is to "provide, in concert with parents, parish, and community, an educational opportunity which seeks to form Christian leaders in body, mind, and spirit." Roncalli supports and "further[s] the mission and purposes of" the Archdiocese. As the Archdiocese and Roncalli explain, their relationship is governed by Catholic theology and canon law.¹

Charles Weisenbach, Roncalli's principal, is responsible for hiring "faculty and staff whose values are compatible" with the school's mission. When hiring, Weisenbach considers whether a candidate is a "faithful Catholic," "involved in the Catholic community," and "wants to grow with" the school. If possible, the school prefers to hire Catholics for teaching, administrative, and guidance counseling positions. Ideally, "all teachers and guidance counselors that are hired would be qualified, faithful Catholics." After a candidate is hired, Roncalli continues to evaluate "which teachers and counselors are actively seeking opportunities to be involved in the faith formation and overall development of [its] students." This involvement is considered when deciding which employees to retain or promote.

Lynn Starkey began working at Roncalli in 1978 as an assistant band director and choral director. Her job included teaching choral music, selecting music for that curriculum (some of which was religious), and preparing "students for the music that was used during the all-school liturg[ies]." After three years, Starkey left Roncalli to complete a one-year master's degree in music education. When she returned, she transitioned into a new role as Roncalli's New Testament teacher and became a certified catechist. About seven years later, Starkey also became the school's fine arts chair. In that job she oversaw the school's "band, choir, the visual arts, and theater," as well as evaluated the teachers in the department. Although she did not consider this new position to be a promotion, it came with a pay raise and additional responsibilities. After about nine years, Starkey became a guidance counselor, a position for which she completed a master's degree in school counseling.

Some guidance counselors at Roncalli discuss and practice their faith with students. For example, one guidance counselor testified that praying and attending liturgies with students was a regular part of her job. Another former counselor disagreed and testified that she did not recall praying with students. Starkey submits that although some counselors might act in this capacity, she never discussed religion during a student consultation. Instead, when confronted with non-academic concerns, she would refer a student to a social worker or chaplain. Starkey acknowledges that at the principal's request, more than once she delivered a morning prayer over the school's public address system.

A decade later, Starkey became Roncalli's Co-Director of Guidance. This position involved supervision of the school's guidance counselors and oversight of the department's social work. Her responsibilities included tasks related to the budget, course catalog, course description book, and curriculum updates from the Indiana Department of Education. According to Starkey, her "job was to provide academic, college, and career guidance to students and to provide resources and referrals as needed." As a supervisor, she also discussed religious topics with staff and administration. For example, Starkey instructed staff how to prepare students of different faiths for the Catholic liturgy. And in May 2016, she wrote Weisenbach that if "school counselors had a Ministry Description, it would be identical to that of teachers," with only two exceptions unrelated to religion.

Starkey does not dispute that as Co-Director of Guidance she helped draft performance criteria for Roncalli to evaluate the guidance counselors under her supervision. Among the criteria for a "Distinguished School Counselor" half were religious factors, such as:

• "School counselor embodies the charisms of Saint John XXIII [Angelo Roncalli] and lives out his traits."

• "School counselor encourages students' spiritual life and resources in counseling conversation as appropriate (i.e. encouraging prayer/reflection, sharing one's own spiritual experiences as appropriate; encouraging retreat, parish, youth ministry, mission work)."

• "School counselor consistently attends their Sunday liturgy or church service."

Starkey is not a practicing Catholic. She did not receive religious training or claim religious tax deductions while at Roncalli. The school did not ask whether she donated financially to the Catholic Church or regularly attended Mass. Starkey does not dispute that she attended monthly school Masses, during which she received Communion and sang with the congregation. Several times she went to "Days of Reflection," an annual event meant to focus faculty "who are impacting kids in their spiritual life on a day-to-day basis" on the Catholic mission. These events involved a call-and-response Commissioning Prayer, in which faculty accepted the responsibilities of their ministry. Starkey and several others do not recall participating in the call-and-response prayer.

As part of her job, Starkey served on Roncalli's main leadership body, the Administrative Council. According to Weisenbach, "[m]ost faculty and staff recognize the Administrative Council as the lifeblood of decision-making at the school." The Council meets weekly to address Roncalli's "day-to-day operations and spiritual life." Together, "the Administrative Council and the Department Chairs are responsible for 95% of Roncalli's daily ministry, education, and operations." Along with these day-to-day operations, the Administrative Council makes decisions related to the school's religious mission, such as arranging logistics for an all-school liturgy and qualifications for a student to serve as a eucharistic minister.²

Starkey maintains that although she may have been in a position to provide input on religious matters, she never actually did so. As a member of the Administrative Council, she contributed little to nothing on topics related to religion, and only voiced her opinion on non-religious matters that came before it. The Faculty Handbook did not list her as a leader of the "Faith Community," so she largely deferred to Council members who had religious titles and responsibilities. In her role on the Administrative Council, she participated in discussions about suicide prevention, holding a prayer service after the Parkland mass shooting, and how Roncalli should present itself as a Catholic option for faith formation and religious education.

Roncalli uses a one-year employment contract for teachers and guidance counselors. For more than thirty years, Roncalli has included a "morals clause" in those contracts. From 2007 to 2017, the school used a contract titled, "School Teacher Contract," which required employees refrain from "any personal conduct or lifestyle at variance with the policies of the Archdiocese or the moral or religious teachings of the Roman Catholic Church." Failure to do so would result in "default under th[e] contract." An employee was also in default if she engaged in "[c]ohabitation (living together) without being legally married." The school principal and the pastor could "suspend or terminate the employment" of a defaulted employee at his or her discretion.

For the 2017–18 school year, Roncalli instituted a new employment agreement entitled "Teaching Ministry Contract." It contained the same morals clause and attached a Ministry Description detailing the responsibilities of the position. The next year, in May 2018, Starkey signed a contract titled, "School Guidance Counselor Ministry Contract," which came with the "Archdiocese of Indianapolis Ministry Description." The updated contract included a similar morals clause, but now stated that an employee was in default if the employee were to engage in a relationship "contrary to a valid marriage as seen through the eyes of the Catholic Church," which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 1660 (2d ed. 2016).

The accompanying Ministry Description defined the primary functions of a school guidance counselor in part as:

Adhering to mission and within the school's supervisory structure, including the school principal and pastor or high school principal and president, the school guidance counselor will collaborate with parents and fellow professional educators to foster the spiritual, academic, social, and emotional growth of the children entrusted in his/her care.

The Ministry Description also labeled guidance counselors "minister[s] of the faith," and stated that their position included "[f]acilitat[ing] [f]aith [f]ormation." A guidance counselor's...