2nd Cir: Ministerial exception bars priest’s Title VII racial discrimination claim against diocese
Rweymamu v. Cote, No. 061041 (2nd Cir. March 21, 2008)(access through the 2nd circuit website). The opinion begins:
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Warren W. Eginton, Judge) concluding that the “ministerial exception” to Title VII barred plaintiff’s suit and granting defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. We hold that Title VII is unconstitutional as applied in this case and that the ministerial exception bars plaintiff’s claim. AFFIRMED.
Alleging that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich, through its Bishop, misapplied canon law in denying him a requested promotion and, ultimately, in terminating him, Father Justinian Rweyemamu, an African-American Catholic priest, claims racial discrimination in a Title VII suit against the Bishop and the Diocese. After the district court dismissed the suit pursuant to the “ministerial exception,” Father Justinian appealed. The question we must decide is whether, under the First Amendment, Title VII is unconstitutional as applied in this case. In reaching this constitutional question, we distinguish this case from our decision in Hankins v. Lyght, 441 F.3d 96, 99 (2d Cir. 2006), which held that a federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb, 2000bb-1 to 3 -4, governed the merits of an age discrimination action against a church.