{"id":2000074,"date":"2023-08-14T14:03:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T18:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-religious-schools-can-screen-for-teachers-who-follow-faith\/"},"modified":"2023-08-14T14:04:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T18:04:33","slug":"new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-religious-schools-can-screen-for-teachers-who-follow-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-religious-schools-can-screen-for-teachers-who-follow-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"NJ Supreme Court allows religious schools to select teachers based on their religious beliefs."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnew-jersey-supreme-court-rules-religious-schools-can-screen-for-teachers-who-follow-faith%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2000074&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>The \u2064Supreme Court of New Jersey Upholds Religious Schools&#8217; Right to Screen Employees Based on\u2062 Faith<\/h2>\n<p>The Supreme Court of New Jersey made a landmark ruling on Monday, \u2063affirming\u2064 that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-bill-would-eliminate-single-sex-spaces-on-college-campuses\/\" title=\"New Bill Would Eliminate Single-Sex Spaces on College Campuses\">religious schools<\/a> have the authority to screen their employees based\u2064 on their adherence to the institution&#8217;s \u2064faith. This decision comes after St. Theresa School, a Catholic elementary school in the Archdiocese of Newark, terminated the contract of a \u200dteacher who became \u2062pregnant out of\u2062 wedlock, in violation of church \u2062teaching.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;The religious tenets exception allowed St. Theresa\u2019s to require its employees, as a condition of employment,\u2064 to abide by Catholic law, including that they abstain from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hailey-baldwin-credits-christian-faith-for-marriage-to-justin-bieber\/\" title=\"Hailey Baldwin Credits Christian Faith For Marriage To Justin Bieber\">premarital sex<\/a>,&#8221; Justice Lee Solomon wrote in his opinion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>New Jersey \u2062law recognizes the right of religious institutions to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-religious-schools-can-screen-for-teachers-who-follow-faith\/\" title=\"NJ Supreme Court allows religious schools to select teachers based on their religious beliefs.\">establish employment criteria based<\/a> on their faith, as Justice Solomon explained. This provision serves\u2064 as an &#8220;affirmative defense available to a religious entity when confronted with a claim of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doj-investigating-spacexs-hiring-practices-after-non-u-s-citizen-alleges-discrimination\/\" title=\"DOJ Investigating SpaceX\u2019s Hiring Practices After Non-U.S. Citizen Alleges Discrimination\">employment discrimination<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The case \u2062involved Victoria Crisitello, a former student of St. Theresa&#8217;s who later became an art teacher and toddler room caregiver at the school. She was fired in 2014 after becoming pregnant\u200d out of wedlock. The school cited her violation of church doctrine, which explicitly\u2064 prohibits premarital sex, a condition she had agreed to in her employment contract.<\/p>\n<p>When Crisitello filed a complaint with the \u2064Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging\u2064 discrimination\u200d based on her pregnancy and marital status, the \u2064school\u2063 argued\u200d that her termination was not solely due to her pregnancy but rather her engagement in \u2064sex outside of\u2063 marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the school raised First Amendment concerns, asserting that a \u200druling against them would infringe on matters of faith, doctrine, and internal\u200b governance. Agudath Israel of America, a \u200cnational \u200bOrthodox Jewish organization representing the interests of Jewish schools, supported St. Theresa&#8217;s position by filing a brief.<\/p>\n<p>Agudath Israel enlisted the Becket Fund for Religious\u200b Liberty, whose vice\u200b president\u2062 and senior counsel, Eric Rassbach, presented the organization&#8217;s argument before the court. Rassbach emphasized the importance of teachers who believe in and follow their faith in religious schools, stating, &#8220;Teachers \u200dmake the school.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court of New Jersey chose not to address the constitutional questions in this case, opting\u2062 to rely on statutory reasoning and only resort to ruling on the Constitution &#8220;if necessary.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\">The Washington \u2064Examiner<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that religious schools can screen employees based on their faith. St. Theresa School, a Catholic elementary school, was supported by the court in terminating a contract. The unanimous decision allows religious institutions to uphold their beliefs in employee selection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2000074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}