Fired teacher challenges religious exemption in suit against Georgia Catholic school

A non-Catholic teacher at a Catholic school in the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia, has filed a lawsuit alleging she was wrongfully terminated, arguing the diocese cannot claim protection under the “ministerial exception” of employment law because she was not required to integrate Church teachings into her lessons and finds Catholicism “offensive.”

According to court documents, Keshel Coates taught first grade classes at St. Peter Claver Catholic School in Macon for two years beginning in 2022. During her interview, she was told that she would need to take her class to Mass once a week and monitor their behavior. 

She was also required to sign work agreements that stated her employment was conditioned on adherence to Church teaching and contained an acknowledgement that her position as a teacher was ministerial. However, she claims that a conversation with the principal led her to believe that those statements only applied to Catholics.

Coates, who is African American, received positive performance reviews until 2024 when she participated in a police investigation into an incident concerning another teacher, identified in court documents as white, and a student. Coates had informed the student’s parents of the incident, a move that the principal and the diocese’s school superintendent reportedly questioned.

According to court documents, Coates alleged that after she participated in the investigation — which resulted in simple assault charges against the teacher — the school began scrutinizing her and claiming she committed various minor infractions. 

When she was informed her contract would not be renewed because she “did not fully participate in the religious aspects of [the] program as was stated upon hiring that needed to be done,” she sued the diocese.

Coates alleged discrimination on the basis of race, retaliation, breach of contract and wrongful termination, religious harassment, and “religious coercion and abuse of the ministerial exception,” among other claims.

Ruling April 6, a district court called Coates’ complaint “far too long and confusing” and dismissed all arguments except the ministerial exception claim. The court said that Coates plausibly claims that her role at the school was not ministerial since she did not participate in Catholic activities.

The court ruled that further litigation may show that the school “has a sincere mission to promote religious education, and that Coates, even as a non-Catholic, served a vital role in that mission,” which would subject her to the ministerial exception. Even so, the court refused the diocese’s request to dismiss the claim.

Charles Russo, a research professor of law at the University of Dayton, Ohio, wrote in an op-ed for the Catholic World Report that Coates is “very unlikely” to have a valid claim for retaliation under the ministerial exception. He said that the case will set a precedent “about the reach of the ministerial exception” and argued that the suit demonstrates the importance of Catholic and faith-based schools hiring individuals who agree or are aligned with the same values.

He added, “In light of the significant constitutional and statutory rights at issue under the ministerial exception in Coates, it would be surprising if the court did not rule in favor of the Diocese and St. Peter Claver, thereby securing its right, along with that of other Catholic and faith-based schools, to religious freedom.”