Judge dismisses Patterson, Southwestern suit

A federal judge has ruled that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s decision to fire a female Hebrew professor was akin to a church’s decision to fire its pastor — and therefore outside the purview of the civil courts.

In a March 19 ruling, U.S. District Judge John McBryde dismissed all of the complaints in Sheri Klouda’s lawsuit against her alma mater and former employer.

Citing a string of precedents by the U.S. Supreme Court and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, McBryde wrote, “the courts are prohibited by the First Amendment from involving themselves in ecclesiastical matters, such as disputes concerning theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government, or the conformity of the members of the church to the standard of morals required.”

Klouda’s suit against the Fort Worth, Texas, seminary and its president, Paige Patterson, involved such an ecclesiastical matter, the judge determined. It should, therefore, be treated the same way the law would treat an employment dispute between a church and a minister — by avoiding involvement.

Klouda was hired to teach Hebrew in 2002, under a previous president’s administration. Patterson became Southwestern Seminary’s president in 2003.

According to court documents, he decided that women should not teach theology to male ministers-in-training because the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) confession of faith says the office of pastor is reserved for men.

Nonetheless, according to Klouda, Patterson assured her that she was safe in her tenure-track position.

However, in 2004, she was told that she would not be granted tenure. In 2006, according to Klouda, seminary officials told her she would be terminated at the end of that year.

Among her complaints were that the seminary had violated its promises to her and that there was no clear justification in the Bible or the SBC confession for Patterson’s decision to bar women from Southwestern’s theology faculty.

But McBryde said that was not a decision for the court to second-guess, writing, “mere inquiry into those areas would be an unconstitutional intrusion into the affairs of [the seminary] as a religious organization.” (ABP)