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Thursday, January 27, 2022
Israel, Jewish teaching, and a strange law (Updated)
A teacher at a Jewish school in Westchester County, N.Y. has sued the Temple and Temple leaders, alleging that she was fired for writing statements critical of Israel on her personal blog (the post at issue was written after she was hired, before she started, and on my birthday, which may not be a material fact). The suit is brought under a provision of New York law that prohibits adverse employment action based on a person's "legal recreational activities," which the plaintiff alleges includes blogging (no comment). The story has garnered s attention, in the Jewish press because it exposes possible fault lines within the Jewish community over Israel and how anti-Zionism fits into Jewish teaching. A number of Jewish academics and leaders issued an open letter to the Temple supporting the woman.
The claim seems to me doomed under the ministerial exemption. Our Lady of Guadalupe says teachers are ministers (for FMLA and ADA purposes, but the First Amendment idea should carry), at least if their duties touch minimally on the religious. Paragraph 11 of the complaint says:
The job was secular rather than religious, and no religious ordination or training was required. The teaching responsibilities were essentially limited to the teaching and tutoring of the Hebrew language to WRT’s learners and students. The other job responsibilities involved assisting and supporting the development of social, cultural and community service programs for the teenagers in the WRT community.
I doubt that is sufficient to get around the First Amendment. She is teaching Hebrew at least in part because it is necessary for students to learn prayers and "social, cultural, and community service programs" are part of the core of what a Temple does.
But I am wondering if we even reach the First Amendment. Does this law preclude an employer from taking action against someone who expresses or reveals objectionable views, views the employer believes inconsistent with its mission, if done as part of a lawful recreational activity? Can a kosher deli fire a waiter who attended the Unite the Right Rally? What if the Temple fired a custodian or security guard who attends a rally in support of Holocaust denial? If the law prohibits these actions, does that raise First Amendment problems as to the employer, who must employ someone with objectionable political views? If the employer could fire those employees, how does it get around this law? Can the employer fire a person not for their recreational activities (blogging, attending a rally) but for their expressed views, using the lawful recreational activities as evidence of those views?
Employment lawyers, please help.
Update: My colleague Kerri Stone offers this primer from a law firm discussing the law in the shadow of the 2020 protests. It seems to suggest that the law gives employees broad rights against adverse employment action for non-work expressive activity. It mentions a 2017 lawsuit by a NY Post sportswriter fired for comparing the inauguration of Donald Trump with Pearl Harbor and 9/11; the suit was dropped, but it might have had legs.
Update II: A reader emails to argue that the lawsuit is frivolous because the ministerial-exemption issue is so obvious and that this suggests an ulterior motive by the plaintiff, her lawyers, and those supporting her. There is a genuine moral question of whether and how synagogues should be open to competing views on Israel and whether support for Palestinian justice is consistent with Jewish commitments to social justice. But that is for the Jewish community and each synagogue to resolve. It does not belong in court. The ministerial exemption exists because courts should not be telling religious organizations what its. And that is why the reader suggests the plaintiff, her lawyers, and those supporting her may have an ulterior motive.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on January 27, 2022 at 10:09 AM in Constitutional thoughts, First Amendment, Howard Wasserman, Judicial Process | Permalink
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