Some employers can refuse to offer free birth control
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled broadly Wednesday in favor of the religious rights of employers in two cases that could leave more than 70,000 women without free contraception and tens of thousands of people with no way to sue for job discrimination.
In both cases the court ruled 7-2, with two liberal justices joining conservatives in favor of the Trump administration and religious employers.
In the more prominent of the two cases, involving President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the justices greenlighted changes the Trump administration had sought. The administration announced in 2017 that it would allow more employers to opt out of providing the no-cost birth control coverage required under the law, but lower courts had blocked the changes.
The ruling is a significant election-year win for President Donald Trump, who counts on heavy support from evangelicals and other Christian groups for votes and policy backing. It was also good news for the administration, which in recent weeks has seen headline-making Supreme Court decisions go against its positions.
In one of those earlier cases, the court rejected Trump’s effort to end legal protections for 650,000 young immigrants. In another, the justices said a landmark civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment.
The court’s birth-control decision was cheered by conservative groups, and White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany joined in. “Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a big win for religious freedom and freedom of conscience,” she said in a statement.
Liberal groups and Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, decried the decision, which she called a “fundamental misreading” of the health care law. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said the decision will make it “easier for the Trump-Pence Administration to continue to strip health care from women.”
The Trump administration is still seeking to overturn Obama’s Affordable Care Act in its entirety. It has joined Texas and other Republican-led states in calling on the justices to do just that. The case is scheduled to be argued in the court term that begins in October.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority of the court, said in Wednesday’s decision that the administration has the authority to make its birth-control coverage changes and followed appropriate procedures in doing so.
The government has estimated that the rule changes would cause between 70,000 women and 126,000 women to lose contraception coverage in one year.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited those numbers in dissenting.
“Today, for the first time, the Court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree,” she wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Birth control coverage has been a topic of contention since the health care law was passed.
“The ACA’s contraceptive mandate ... has existed for approximately nine years. Litigation surrounding that requirement has lasted nearly as long,” Thomas wrote.
Initially, churches, synagogues and mosques were exempt from the contraceptive coverage requirement. The Obama administration also created a way by which religiously affiliated organizations including hospitals, universities and charities could opt out of paying for contraception, but women on their health plans would still get no-cost birth control. Some groups complained the opt-out process itself violated their religious beliefs, and years of legal wrangling followed.
After Trump took office, officials announced changes. Under a new policy issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, more categories of employers, including publicly traded companies, can opt out of providing no-cost birth control to women by claiming religious objections. The policy
also allows some employers, though not publicly traded companies, to raise moral objections and do the same.
The changes were blocked by courts after New Jersey and Pennsylvania challenged them.
Future administrations could attempt to alter the Trump administration rules. And two liberal justices who sided with the administration, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer, suggested the legal fight over the administration’s changes may continue.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a statement after the ruling, “This fight is not over.”
In the religious-schools discrimination case, the court had ruled unanimously in 2012 that the Constitution prevents ministers from suing their churches for employment discrimination, but the justices didn’t rigidly define who counts as a minister.
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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
Court sides with Catholic schools in employment suit
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court sided with two Catholic schools in a ruling Wednesday underscoring that certain employees of religious schools, hospitals and social service centers can’t sue for employment discrimination.
The high court’s ruling was 7-2, with two liberal justices joining the conservative majority for the schools. The justices had previously said in a unanimous 2012 decision that the Constitution prevents ministers from suing their churches for employment discrimination. The court said then that the required separation of church and state means that religious groups must be allowed to hire and fire individuals who serve as teachers or messengers of their faith, without court interference. But the court didn’t rigidly define who counts as a minister.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion Tuesday that allowing courts to consider workplace discrimination claims against the schools would interfere with the schools’ çonstitutionally guaranteed religious independence.
“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission,” Alito wrote.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that as many as 100,000 employees could lose the right to contest job discrimination as a result of the ruling.
“The Court reaches this result even though the teachers taught primarily secular subjects, lacked substantial religious titles and training, and were not even required to be Catholic,” Sotomayor wrote in an opinion that was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
In a statement, Eric Rassbach, the lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who argued the case for the schools, called the decision a “huge win for religious schools of all faith traditions.”
“The last thing government officials should do is decide who is authorized to teach Catholicism to Catholics or Judaism to Jews. We are glad the Court has resoundingly reaffirmed that churches and synagogues, not government, control who teaches kids about God,” he said.
The case was one of 10 the high court heard arguments in by telephone in May because of the coronavirus pandemic.
It involved two schools in Southern California that were sued by former teachers. In one case, Kristen Biel sued St. James Catholic School in Torrance for disability discrimination after she disclosed she had breast cancer and her teaching contract wasn’t renewed.
In the other case, Agnes Morrissey-Berru sued Our Lady of Guadalupe school in Hermosa Beach for age discrimination after her teaching contract wasn’t renewed when she was in her 60s. The lawsuits were both initially dismissed, but an appeals court revived them. The Trump administration had backed the schools.
Biel died last year at age 54 after a five-year battle with breast cancer. Her husband has represented her side in her place.
Lawyers for Biel and Morrissey-Berru did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The cases are St. James School v. Biel, 19-348, and Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 19-267.
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Associated Press reporter Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
