Summary of facts: The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis requires that Catholic schools’ policies, practices, and employee agreements comply with its Guiding Principles, which set forth the Church’s teaching that God created every person in his image, as male or female, and God’s creation must be honored. In 2021, the Academy of Holy Angels—one of the schools of the Archdiocese—hired a man as a librarian and media specialist on a one-year contract. In the contract, he acknowledged that “employees must conduct themselves in a manner which is consistent with and supportive of the mission and purpose of the Church,” and that he could be dismissed for any “public conduct which is inconsistent with the faith, morals, teachings, or laws of the Catholic Church.” When the employee’s contract came up for renewal in 2022, he informed Holy Angels that he was starting the process of a “gender transition” and would return to the school the next year identifying as a female. This violated the employee’s contract and the Archdiocese’s Guiding Principles, so the school declined to renew his contract. The now-former employee then sued the school and the Archdiocese, alleging discrimination. Both the state trial court and the Minnesota Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the lawsuit on the grounds that it would violate the Constitution for courts to “require the Archdiocese to employ a person who does not support and will not abide by the church’s faith-based Guiding Principles.” The former employee then asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to hear the case, and it agreed.

RFI’s position: The decision of the Minnesota Court of Appeals should be upheld because that court followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s more than 150 years of decisions upholding the autonomy of religious institutions to decide matters of faith and doctrine and apply them to their operations. The Minnesota Constitution’s Freedom of Conscience Clause also requires dismissal of Plaintiffs’ suit because it provides even greater protection for religious liberty than the federal constitution. Moreover, the Minnesota Human Rights Act specifically exempts religious schools and institutions from the sexual orientation nondiscrimination provision applicable to this case. The lower court’s dismissal of this case was correct, and the Minnesota Supreme Court should affirm that dismissal.

Read the brief here.