Barrett v. Fontbonne Academy is a Massachusetts Superior Court decision of December 16, 2015, that found that a Roman Catholic secondary school violated the state's laws against discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender when it withdrew an offer of employment from a candidate when officials learned he was in a civil same-sex marriage. It was the first decision in the United States since the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage accomplished by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges the previous June to consider the competing claims of discrimination in employment and the protections afforded religious institutions.
Background
On January 29, 2014, Matthew Barrett represented by GLAD filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination against Fontbonne Academy, a Catholic secondary school in Milton, Massachusetts, because in July 2013 the school withdrew an offer of employment as food service manager when officials learned he was in a same-sex marriage. After accepting the job offer, Barrett completed paperwork and provided as his emergency contact the name Ed Suplee, whom he identified as his "husband". A few days later the school withdrew its offer of employment and explained that his status as a spouse in a same-sex marriage was inconsistent with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
The facts of the case were not in dispute. A spokesperson for the school said it "does not discriminate based on sexual orientation, but that church doctrine against same-sex marriage drives policy at Fontbonne, and other Catholic schools." The Academy is an all-girls college preparatory school sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston.
Some negative reaction from alumnae of Fontbonne Academy, on social media and in comments on news articles, was directed at the school, though some blamed the Church rather than the school.
In September 2014, Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley was asked how to reconcile the Church's outreach to gays and lesbians with the number of LGBT-related employment disputes in the news. He replied that the situation "needs to be rectified".
Decision
The case moved to Massachusetts Superior Court in May 2014. On December 16, 2015, Judge Douglas H. Wilkins ruled in Barrett v. Fontbonne Academy that the Academy had violated the state's laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender.
The court identified two types of discrimination. It held that Barrett suffered discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation because basing the school's action on his marriage is not distinct from basing it on his sexual orientation. It also found gender-based discrimination, because "he was denied employment for marrying a person whom a female could have married without suffering the same consequences".
The court then weighed the Academy's claims that it qualified for exemption under the statutes, first examining certain contradictory language in the relevant statutes. It said that the legislature allowed only a very narrow exemption for religious institutions as employers and that because the Academy admits non-Catholic students–"including Muslims, Jews, Baptists, Buddhists, Hindus and Episcopalians"–it failed to meet the law's strict test for exemption as an enterprise that "limits membership, enrollment, admission, or participation to members of that religion". The school requires only administrators and the theology faculty to be Catholics. The Academy had argued that requiring it to employ Barrett violated its federal Constitutional right to "expressive association", but the court found that Barrett's employment as food service manager would not significantly burden the school's ability to communicate its message or "dilute that message, given Barrett's only assertion in conflict with the school's message had occurred when completing a form and that in the position he sought to fill he would not be engaged in the school's mission of "presenting the gospel values or the ... teachings of the Catholic Church". The court also pointed to public awareness of the issue: