Religious High Schools and Morality Clauses: Overview

Introduction

Morality clauses exist in many types of contracts. For example, contracts for highly visible professional athletes and television stars may permit termination of employment for criminal activity, and divorce custody agreements may prohibit certain behavior such as overnight guests when the children are home. Increasingly, religious high schools use morality clauses in their teacher contracts to proscribe a variety of behaviors believed to violate religious values. Common examples of prohibited behavior include living with a romantic partner outside of marriage, using birth control or reproductive assistance such as in vitro fertilization, or having gay or lesbian relationships. Many of these clauses also prohibit showing "public support" for proscribed activities.

Proponents of morality clauses argue that religious institutions have the right to instill values in their students without government intervention. Teachers know about these clauses when signing their contracts and can choose to work elsewhere if they disagree. Opponents worry that schools will use the clauses to circumvent laws designed to prevent discrimination against protected classes of employees, particularly gay, lesbian, and transgender teachers. US Supreme Court rulings have lent support to both sides of the debate; employees are officially protected from discrimination based sexual orientation and gender identity under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the court has also recognized a "ministerial exception" in which antidiscrimination laws do not always apply to religious institutions.

Understanding the Discussion

Bishop: The leader of a diocese. Similarly, an archbishop is the leader of an archdiocese.

Catholic High School Academy Lay Teachers Association (CHALTA): A group that represents the interests of Catholic high school teachers who are not, for example, priests or nuns.

Diocese: A regional level of organization within certain Christian denominations, notably the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church. A diocese is often based in a large town or city and oversees the operations of smaller parishes in nearby towns. A diocese that is especially large or significant may be designated an archdiocese.

Morality clause: A clause in an employment contract that prohibits certain employee behavior for moral reasons.

Superintendent: The top-level administrator in charge of operations within a school district.

Title VII: An element of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

History

Morality clauses identify behaviors that allow an employer to void a contract and terminate employment. These clauses exist in many contexts: For example, professional sports contracts might permit firing a player charged with a felony while on the team, or a divorce custody agreement might prohibit a former spouse from hosting an unmarried overnight visitor while the children are home. Increasingly, religious schools are adding morality clauses to their teacher employment contracts, or modifying the language of existing clauses, to prohibit specific behavior believed to violate the church's teachings.

In 2014, the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio, added a morality clause to its contracts with approximately twenty-two hundred teachers. The clause prohibits behavior such as living with a partner outside of marriage, using birth control or in vitro fertilization, and living a "gay lifestyle." Even more restrictively, the contracts also prohibited "publicly supporting" any of the prohibited activities. Several teachers quit their jobs rather than sign the new contracts, including first-grade teacher Molly Shumate, who worried she could be fired for publicly supporting her gay son.

That same year, the Cleveland, Ohio, diocese required elementary teachers to sign a detailed morality clause that explicitly banned publicly supporting abortion, same-sex marriage, artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and surrogate parenthood; having sex outside of marriage or living together without being married; sharing any material that is "lewd, indecent, sexually suggestive, or pornographic"; and unlawful use of drugs. Bishop Richard Lennon stated that the contract change was designed to ensure that Catholic schools are "authentically Catholic" in every way. In 2015, the diocese expanded this requirement to include high school teachers. Diocese spokesman Robert Tayek said the teachers supported the new contract language as simply a clarification of policies already in place within the contract, but opponents noted that a "significant minority" of teachers expressed concern that the language could be used to single out particular groups of people for discriminatory employment practices.

Most of these clauses quite explicitly prohibit teachers from publicly disclosing their own homosexuality or same-sex relationships, but the broad language prohibiting "public support" raises important legal questions. Arguably, any public appearance with a same-sex partner could constitute a contract violation, thus forcing gay and lesbian teachers to keep their sexual orientation a carefully guarded secret.

Furthermore, opponents question whether, for example, a teacher could be fired for attending the same-sex marriage ceremony of a child, family member, or friend. With reference to the Cleveland clauses, CHALTA president Mike Desantis explained that "if you have a child or sibling that has decided to live the gay lifestyle you can still be supportive of that individual, but you cannot come out and be supportive of that lifestyle in public." Critics observe that this still fails to clearly define the line at which one risks losing one's job for "public support" of gay or lesbian family members and that it says nothing of showing support for nonrelatives.

In response, Dr. Jim Rigg, the superintendent of the Cincinnati Catholic schools, explained that the revised contracts do not actually contain new prohibitions: The old contracts already required teachers to behave in conformance with the morals and teachings of the Catholic Church. The new contract simply spells out the requirements in more explicit language, leaving less room for confusion over what activities are prohibited. However, some teachers and employment-rights advocates believe the new language is intended to instill fear and create loopholes to allow for discriminatory employment practices.

These clauses led to several high-profile firings. In October 2010, computer teacher Christa Dias was fired from a Cincinnati Catholic school after she became pregnant via artificial insemination. In the subsequent discrimination lawsuit, Dias, who is not Catholic, argued that she knew about the morality clause but did not know specifically that undergoing artificial insemination would violate her contract. Instead, she thought the clause simply required her generally to follow the teachings of the Bible. The diocese argued that Dias never intended to honor the clause, as evidenced by the fact that she kept her same-sex relationship a secret because she knew that would violate the contract. A jury awarded Dias $170,000 in compensatory damages, back pay, and punitive fines.

In Columbus, Ohio, teacher Carla Hale was fired after nineteen years at Bishop Watterson High School in 2013 for violating a similar morality clause. Hale named her same-sex partner in a newspaper obituary for her recently deceased mother and was fired for publicly disclosing an extramarital relationship in violation of her employment contract. Hale sued for discrimination, and the case reached a settlement, but she was not reinstated to her teaching position.

While many high-profile cases involve Catholic schools in Ohio, other states are following similar paths. In Oakland, California, Bishop Michael Barber added language to the 2014–15 school year contracts "spelling out the mission of a Catholic educator" in explicit detail. Meanwhile, San Francisco archbishop Salvatore Cordileone proposed the addition of morality clauses to teacher contracts and the employee handbook for the 2015–16 school year. Teachers of the city's four Catholic high schools voted 90–80 in favor of including a general provision to "affirm Catholic values through the Gospel of Jesus Christ" but stopped short of approving an explicit list of prohibitions on specific activities.

Religious High Schools and Morality Clauses Today

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is illegal to discriminate in most employment contexts based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Other legislation has prohibited employment discrimination based on pregnancy, disability, and age. However, the US Supreme Court's 2012 decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC recognized a "ministerial exception" allowing religious institutions greater control in hiring and firing employees who do not conform to their moral standards. This potentially opens a loophole that allows religious schools to discriminate against protected classes. Indeed, some legal commentators suggested that dioceses such as Cincinnati added the title of "minister" to their teachers' job descriptions simply in an attempt to circumvent antidiscrimination laws.

Observers such as Arthur Fitzmaurice of the Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry noted their anecdotal suspicion that morality clauses were on the rise across the United States in the late 2010s. Growing attention to the issue helped raise legal concerns that morality clauses allow Catholic schools to bypass antidiscrimination laws under the guise of teaching and enforcing morals. In some archdioceses like Seattle, Washington, and Indianapolis, Indiana, students and parents called for the reinstatement of gay teachers who were terminated or urged to resign after their engagements or marriages became public knowledge. Gay and lesbian teachers are not the only group affected by these clauses, however. Several women were documented to have lost their jobs for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, either intentionally or accidentally, or for conceiving through artificial insemination.

Two Supreme Court rulings in 2020 had considerable significance for the issue of morality clauses. First, in the landmark Bostock v. Clayton County, the court confirmed that the Title VII provision against sex discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also covers gay, lesbian, and transgender employees. This was considered a major victory for LGBTQ activists, as protections that had already been enacted in many states were now in place nationwide at the federal level. However, the Supreme Court also ruled in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (consolidated with the related case St. James School v. Biel) that the ministerial exception can extend to employees who serve key religious functions even if they are not officially titled or trained as "ministers" or other religious leaders. Proponents of morality clauses noted that this gave religious schools potentially more leeway to hold teachers and other employees to a moral standard, while opponents suggested it could leave many employees vulnerable to discrimination.

Finally, there has been little agreement as to whether morality clauses are enforceable. Contracts prohibiting "immoral" behavior may or may not be enforceable depending on the circumstances. Opponents observe that morality clauses often contain vague language such as prohibiting "public support" for a "homosexual lifestyle." If the contract is unclear what behavior could lead to termination, it might not be enforceable against the employee.

These essays and any opinions, information, or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

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