The Discriminatory Application of Non-Discrimination Policies

After months of deliberation, the University of Texas at San Antonio Career Center has

agreed to post job announcements for a pro-life, Christian residential home for needy pregnant

women. UTSA originally declined to post the announcements on the ground that they

were "discriminatory."

 

In this case, Adoption Priorities, a Christian organization that provides adoption services,

recently launched the Amaris Home Project. The project provides assistance to expectant

mothers by providing a safe and compassionate home in which they may reside during their

pregnancy. Adoption Priorities desired to hire "house parents" who would live at the facility,

serve the needs of the residents, and act as Christian role models for them.

 

Amanda and Mitchell Way, Adoption Priorities' leaders and UTSA alumni, sought to post a job

announcement at the career center. Current students and alumni use the center to find jobs. The

announcement stated that Adoption Priorities was seeking a "pro-life married Christian couple"

who would provide "care, oversight and spiritual guidance" to a group of up to four women

living in the home. One spouse was required to have Christian ministry experience.

 

UTSA rejected the announcement as written, indicating that requiring the house parents to be

pro-life and Christian was impermissibly discriminatory. Under the logic of UTSA's position,

Adoption Priorities could not post a job announcement at the career center unless it was willing

to hire an atheist, pro-abortion, same-sex couple to serve as house parents.

 

The Alliance Defense Fund wrote a letter to UTSA, explaining that the school was violating

legal protections of religious liberty by rejecting the announcement. The letter also explained

that both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the analogous Texas state statute exempt

religious employers from their bans on religious discrimination. UTSA refused to change

its mind, and ADF attorneys sent a "notice of claim" under the Texas Religious Freedom

Restoration Act, a necessary prerequisite to litigation. The subsequent communications between

ADF attorneys and UTSA eventually caused UTSA to agree to post Adoption Priorities' job

announcements in their original form. I applaud UTSA for getting it right . . . finally.

 

This situation illustrates a widespread and serious problem. Too many governments are

inappropriately applying non-discrimination rules to religious groups that maintain their religious

character through their personnel choices. They refuse to acknowledge that there is an enormous

difference between, say, General Motors refusing to hire Hindus to work on its assembly lines and a synagogue wanting its rabbi to be Jewish.

 

In some cases, applying non-discrimination rules to religious entities is simply a means for

marginalizing unpopular groups. Hostile government bureaucrats are increasingly using rules

banning discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” to punish organizations that embrace

traditional sexual ethics and reject same-sex “marriage.” Witness the way the Boy Scouts of

America have literally been locked out of public facilities around the country, all because it

requires that its members “not advocate or engage in homosexual conduct.”

 

This simply should not be.

 

The freedom to speak our minds and live out our faith unencumbered by governmental

intrusiveness is guaranteed by the First Amendment. But it’s a guarantee that often seems to

dangle by a thin thread when confronted with political correctness inherent in the misguided

application of non-discrimination policies. The Alliance Defense Fund is in the fight, and plans

to stay in the fight for as long as it takes to make sure our First Liberty is well protected.