Recent legal battles over nondiscrimination policies and religious freedom have prompted the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) to examine whether or not it is possible to reconcile the at-times conflicting principles.
Today, the USCCR will host a two-panel briefing to discuss the intersection of nondiscrimination policies and religious liberties exemplified in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC (the ministerial exception case) and Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (the student group non-discrimination case).
According to an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) press release, IVCF plans to attend the briefing. IVCF also says it was invited to submit written comments on “incidents where universities have attempted to restrict the religious liberties of student groups in the name of non-discrimination.”
CT previously has reported on all three of these cases, as well as on the topic of religious freedom. In 2011, CT covered the Hosanna-Tabor case, in which the Supreme Court later ruled that a Lutheran school teacher was a “minister” who could not sue the church that fired her in 2005.
In 2010, CT covered the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in CLS v. Martinez. That case has had ramifications for on-campus student religious groups over the past three years, playing out especially in numerous incidents involving IVCF. Most recently, IVCF won a key nondiscrimination battle at Tufts University.
