Document Type
Brief
Case Name
Gordon College v. Margaret DeWeese-Boyd
Publication Date
9-2-2021
Abstract
No. 21-145
Gordon College v. Margaret DeWeese-Boyd
On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
From the Summary of Argument
This Court should grant certiorari to make clear that the First Amendment guarantees religious colleges and universities the same vital protections that safeguard a religious grade school’s freedom to select the teachers who personify and teach its faith. Despite this Court’s recent admonition that such protections apply to a religious school’s selection of “any ‘employee’ . . . who serves as a messenger or teacher of its faith,” Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey- Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049, 2063, 2064 (2020) (emphasis added), the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts determined they cannot apply in this case because Professor Margaret DeWeese-Boyd’s integration of faith into her work at a Christian college did not look enough like the teaching of religious education at a Christian grade school. That is, despite DeWeese-Boyd’s duty to imbue her teaching and scholarship with Gordon College’s Christian faith, the court opined that she could not be a “minister” of that faith because she did not directly teach “religious doctrine,” lead her students in prayer or worship services, or provide formal religious guidance to them. See Pet. App. 26–34.
Recommended Citation
Garnett, Richard W. IV; Garnett, Nicole Stelle; and Meiser, John A., "Brief of Amici Curiae Benedictine College and Franciscan University of Steubenville in Support of Petitioners" (2021). Court Briefs. 26.
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/sct_briefs/26
Comments
Amici curiae are two deeply religious and distinctly Catholic institutions of higher education: Benedictine College and Franciscan University of Steubenville. The central mission and animating purpose of both schools is to provide an academically rigorous, religiously integrated, and profoundly Catholic education in which young men and women are formed to be leaders in the world and authentic witnesses of Christ. Amici therefore seek to preserve their First Amendment right to define and to direct their religious educational missions free from the interference of the state. That right requires recognition of a robust ministerial exception at the college level so that amici may determine who teaches and transmits their faith to the next generation of students.