{"id":6270,"date":"2009-07-23T14:15:55","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T19:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=6270"},"modified":"2009-07-23T14:15:55","modified_gmt":"2009-07-23T19:15:55","slug":"more-on-coulee-catholic-schools-v-lirc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/07\/more-on-coulee-catholic-schools-v-lirc\/","title":{"rendered":"More on Coulee Catholic Schools v. LIRC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"discrimination\"As Professor Esenberg has just posted about<\/a>, earlier this week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court handed down a very important decision,\u00a0Coulee Catholic Schools v. LIRC<\/a> (2009 WI 88). Although some describe<\/a> the holding as “a dramatic change” in Wisconsin employment law, I think the case is more important for its constitutional discussion. On the actual question presented, I think the Court’s holding was straightforward, correct, and not very dramatic.<\/p>\n

In Coulee Catholic Schools, the Court was asked whether a first grade teacher in a Catholic school was subject to the “ministerial exception,” meaning that the school’s religious freedom to select its own ministers and leaders barred her age discrimination claim. Half the courts in the country that have considered this question concluded that a religious school teacher is engaged in sufficient ministry to be included, while half have said that such a teacher is not. The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that the religious school teacher in this case did engage in and lead sufficient religious activities to fall within the exception.<\/p>\n

As the product of seven years of Catholic primary school, and the son of a longtime Catholic schools teacher, I’m convinced the Court got this determination right. Catholic school teachers lead prayer, organize Mass, teach the Catholic faith, model a moral and devout life, and incorporate religious principles into the “secular subjects” they teach as well. A religious organization should have the religious freedom to select those who communicate its faith to the rising generation free from state interference.<\/p>\n

In addition to Professor Esenberg’s observations,\u00a0let me highlight three other key points from the case:<\/p>\n

1. Robust Religious Liberty Protection in Wisconsin. The majority’s discussion of the Wisconsin Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 18<\/a> in paragraphs 58-66 describes a very strong protection for the free exercise of religion and conscience in Wisconsi, following the Court’s precedent in State v. Miller. Looking at the text of the clauses, the Court concludes, “It is difficult to conceive of language being stronger than this.”<\/p>\n

This language could be important in future cases. \u00a0For instance, if future challenges were filed in the health care conscience context after the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act<\/a> or the Madison Surgery Center decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. An emphasis on constitutional text. Since the mid-1970s, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has relied heavily on legislative and popular history when interpreting the Wisconsin Constitution. In this case, the majority cited the standard three-factor test from Beno, but emphasized the importance of text as the first and foremost source. I have been working on a law review article regarding interpretation of the Wisconsin Constitution (more on that soon), and this decision definitely represents a positive step towards a more text-based interpretive method.<\/p>\n

3. Elections matter. Justice Gableman wrote the majority opinion in this 4 to 3 decision. It’s quite probable that if Justice Butler were still on the Court, the decision would have gone the other way. As the Wisconsin Family Council noted<\/a> on its blog, the closing paragraphs of the majority opinion contained an important\u00a0line: “As a court, our job is to interpret and apply the law the people adopt, not to make it up in accord with ours or society’s current policy preferences.”\u00a0 This rings especially true when placed alongside Justice Ziegler’s concurrence last week in VFW Post 2874<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Professor Esenberg has just posted about, earlier this week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court handed down a very important decision,\u00a0Coulee Catholic Schools v. LIRC (2009 WI 88). Although some describe the holding as “a dramatic change” in Wisconsin employment law, I think the case is more important for its constitutional discussion. On the actual question […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,67,33,13,3,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitutional-interpretation","category-first-amendment","category-labor-employment-law","category-civil-law","category-wisconsin","category-wisconsin-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}