case study

read the attached case study and answer the question below it the answer must be in 300-500 words in APA format

  

case study question

. As a church employer in your religion, what reason

would you give for requiring that the building engineer

be of the same religion?

 

Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church

of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos 483 U.S.

327 (1987)

Employee terminated from his job as a janitor in a church-owned gym brought suit for religious discrimination

under Title VII. The U.S. Supreme Court held that applying the religious exemption to Title VII’s

prohibition against religious discrimination in employment to secular nonprofit activities of religious

organization did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause. That is, it is not a violation of

Title VII for a religious employer to discriminate against employees on the basis of religion, even if the

employees are not performing strictly religious functions.

White, J.

Case1

Section 702 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 exempts religious

organizations from Title VII’s prohibition against

discrimination in employment on the basis of religion.

The question presented is whether applying the exemption

to the secular nonprofit activities of religious organizations

violates the Establishment Clause of the First

Amendment. The District Court held that it does. We

reverse.

The Deseret Gymnasium (Gymnasium) in Salt Lake

City, Utah, is a nonprofit facility, open to the public, run

by religious entities associated with The Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church), an unincorporated

religious association sometimes called the Mormon or

LDS Church.

Employee Mayson worked at the Gymnasium for

some 16 years as an assistant building engineer and then

as building engineer. He was discharged in 1981 because

he failed to qualify for a temple recommend, that is, a

certificate that he is a member of the Church and eligible

to attend its temples. Temple recommends are issued

only to individuals who observe the Church’s standards

in such matters as regular church attendance, tithing, and

abstinence from coffee, tea, alcohol, and tobacco.

Mayson brought an action against the Church alleging,

among other things, discrimination on the basis of religion

in violation of § 703 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Church moved to dismiss this claim on the ground

that § 702 shields them from liability. The employees

contended that if construed to allow religious employers

to discriminate on religious grounds in hiring for nonreligious

jobs, the exemption of § 702 violates the Establishment

Clause.

It is a significant burden on a religious organization

to require it, on pain of substantial liability, to predict

which of its activities a secular court will consider religious.

The line is hardly a bright one, and an organization

might understandably be concerned that a judge would

not understand its religious tenets and sense of

mission.

Fear of potential liability might affect the way an organization

carried out what it understood to be its religious

mission.

Congress’s purpose was to minimize governmental

“interfer[ence] with the decision-making process in religions.”

We agree that this purpose does not violate the

Establishment Clause.

The religious groups have been better able to advance

their purposes on account of many laws that have passed

constitutional muster. A law is not unconstitutional simply

because it allows churches to advance religion, which is

their very purpose. For a law to have forbidden “effects,” it

must be fair to say that the government itself has advanced

religion through its own activities and influence.

The case before us involves a nonprofit activity instituted

over 75 years ago in the hope that “all who assemble

here, and who come for the benefit of their health, and

for physical blessings, [may] feel that they are in a house

dedicated to the Lord.” Dedicatory Prayer for the Gymnasium.

Mayson was not legally obligated to take the

steps necessary to qualify for a temple recommend, and

his discharge was not required by statute. We find no

merit in his contention that § 702 “impermissibly delegates

governmental power to religious employees and

conveys a message of governmental endorsement of religious

discrimination.”

§ 702 is rationally related to the legitimate purpose

of alleviating significant governmental interference with

the ability of religious organizations to define and carry

out their religious missions.

It cannot be seriously contended that § 702 impermissibly

entangles church and state; the statute effectuates a

more complete separation of the two and avoids intrusive

inquiry into religious belief. The statute easily passes

muster. REVERSED and REMANDED.

Case Questions

2. As a church employer in your religion, what reason

would you give for requiring that the building engineer

be of the same religion?