The Supreme Court Must Protect Christian Education from Progressive Ideologues

M ost parents don’t want progressive dogma force-fed to their children in school. But literally millions of American children routinely have to sit through lessons saturated with political ideology anyway.

I’m thankful that my youngest children are protected from that sort of preachy bias, because they attend private Christian classical schools where my religious beliefs are respected and politics have no place in the classroom. Unfortunately, once again, parents will have to look to the Supreme Court to protect the autonomy of such church-run schools.

A petition for the Court’s review has been filed by Faith Bible Chapel, which runs Faith Christian Academy, a private school in Arvada, Colo. It’s a school much like the one my youngest three children attend. Christian virtues are woven seamlessly through the day, and the school community gathers in prayer and for inspirational guidance during weekly chapel. First Bible is asking the Court to clarify that the ministerial exception — a First Amendment protection that stops courts from overruling schools’ hiring decisions with respect to employees who perform “ministerial duties” — immunizes it from litigation in a lawsuit brought by a disgruntled former employee, Gregory Tucker. And after rescheduling several times, the Court could issue a decision to review the case soon.

Tucker started teaching science at Faith Christian in 2000. He took time off for missionary work and then returned to the school to teach the Bible, as well. By 2014, he was Faith Christian’s chaplain. Among his responsibilities were planning the school’s weekly chapel services. In January 2018, he led a “Race and Faith” chapel service at which he accused Faith Christian students and parents of racism, “white privilege” and “systemic bias.” (He is, incidentally, himself white.)

As you might expect, students and parents complained to the school leadership about their chaplain’s attempt to guilt-trip them into signing up to his agenda — which didn’t just smear them as racists but also wasn’t consistent with their church’s interpretation of Scripture. Agreeing with these concerns, Faith Christian leaders met repeatedly with Tucker. His response was to write an accusatory letter to the entire school community. When someone else was tasked with planning and speaking at chapel services and Tucker was told that his contract would not be renewed, he sent an angry faculty-wide email. He was fired for insubordination.

Tucker then filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging race discrimination in violation of Title VII, the federal law against employment discrimination. He proceeded to sue Faith Bible under Title VII and Colorado’s wrongful-discharge law, claiming he was the victim of “racially discriminatory termination.” (A reminder: He’s white.)

Faith Bible moved to dismiss Tucker’s lawsuit on ministerial-exception grounds, but the district court denied the motion, concluding that a jury must decide if he was a “minister.” While the school’s appeal was pending before the Tenth Circuit, Tucker asked for the equivalent of the kitchen sink to be turned over in discovery: “Faith Bible’s internal deliberations regarding Tucker’s termination, its internal deliberations about other personnel and student disciplinary actions, and ‘all’ internal and parental communications about the disputed chapel service.” A two-judge motions panel of the court of appeals granted Faith Bible a stay of discovery, concluding that it was likely to succeed on its appeal and would be irreparably injured absent a stay.

But when the appeal was reviewed on its merits, two judges assigned to the three-judge merits panel bizarrely dismissed Faith Bible’s appeal. The dissenting judge, Judge Robert Bacharach, explained that the ministerial exception “serves as a structural safeguard against judicial meddling in religious disputes” and therefore “protects religious bodies from the suit itself.”

Faith Bible’s request for a rehearing by all active judges of the circuit was denied 6–4. Three of the dissenting judges wrote that the panel’s dismissal “reflects a fundamental misconception of the ministerial exception” and is at odds with numerous circuits and state high courts. This mistake can now be fixed only by the Supreme Court.

The ministerial exception is meaningless if churches and church-run schools are forced to incur litigation expenses, even if they are limited to the costs of defending against initial discovery demands. And let’s not forget the real harm of forcing a church or its schools to turn over to the government reams of documents related to internal church decisions.

Granting review of Faith Bible Chapel v. Tucker is the first step in vindicating the First Amendment’s protection of church autonomy. It will also give families like mine some desperately needed reassurance that our schools can continue to protect themselves from ideologues — and that, as a result, our kids can focus on schoolwork instead of political dogma.