A Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling has found that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis lawfully dismissed a transgender librarian from a Catholic school, a decision that reaffirms constitutional protections for religious employers.According to MPR News, the case began in 2023 when Ryzel Grace MoChridhe, a librarian at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Minnesota publicly announced that he planned to “transition” to a female during the upcoming school year. Until that announcement, the school had been supportive of renewing his contract, but decided against it when hearing of his plans.
MoChridhe decided to sue and filed a discrimination complaint alleging that the school and Archdiocese illegally discriminated against him on the basis of sex.
“Allowing an institution to discriminate against employees for the shape of their bodies or the shape of their love is not only a violation of state law, but also a curtailment of religious freedom,” MoChridhe told the press shortly after the filing.
MoChridhe’s attorney, Brittany Stewart of the St. Paul non-profit, Gender Justice, argued that MoChridhe, who is Jewish, had a secular position and was not required to be Catholic or abide by church beliefs.
“She was not in a role where she was asked to teach theology,” Stewart said. “The idea that religion had some key role in her position as a librarian is, frankly, just ridiculous.”
The Minnesota Human Rights act allows for some religious exemptions. It was amended last year to clarify that secular employees are not exempt from the law.
Gender Justice Executive Director Megan Peterson told MPN that even before this rule change, MoChridhe should have been protected.
“Limited religious exemptions… were never meant to apply to secular employees,” Peterson said. “Reyzl’s story highlights the importance of ensuring that no employer in Minnesota has carte blanche to discriminate against employees simply because of who they are.”
As Catholic Vote reports, a district court did not agree with Peterson and dismissed the claim against the archdiocese, stating that the school’s employment decision was protected by church autonomy. That decision was affirmed by the appeals court on December 1 which found that a ruling in favor of MoChridhe’s allegation would violate First Amendment protections because the archdiocese’s decision was based solely on religious grounds.
"Because the allegations in [the] complaint would interfere with an internal church decision that affects the archdiocese’s faith-based mission to educate young people in the Catholic faith and would foster excessive governmental entanglement with religion, the district court properly dismissed those claims,” the court wrote.
Gender Justice said it “strongly disagrees” with the court’s reasoning and is weighing next steps.
The archdiocese expressed gratitude for the ruling.
“The United States and Minnesota Constitutions recognize the right to practice our religion without government interference, which necessarily includes how we educate our youth in the faith,” the archdiocese said in a statement. “Decades of precedent from the United States and Minnesota Supreme Courts, as well as other cases from around the country, have recognized the protections that the First Amendment provides to religious organizations. Monday’s decision from the Minnesota Court of Appeals confirms that constitutional promise.”
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