(Decision) declares World Vision a “religious organization” and therefore exempt from the rules on hiring practices that Congress set down in the 1964 Civil Rights Act

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a ruling this afternoon allowing the Christian humanitarian organization World Vision to base its hiring decisions on matters of religious belief.

Ninth Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain authored the three-judge panel’s majority opinion, which declares World Vision a “religious organization” and therefore exempt from the rules on hiring practices that Congress set down in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, mainly because it is a nonprofit entity which self-identifies as religious.

“This is a significant victory for World Vision’s religious hiring rights,” said Dean Owen, World Vision’s director of media relations. “The right of faith-based organizations to hire people who are co-religionists, who are of their own faith, has been law in this country for nearly 50 years.”

Three former World Vision employees, Silvia Spencer, Ted Youngberg, and Vicki Hulse, sued after World Vision fired them in 2006 for disagreeing with central tenets of the organization’s Statement of Faith. As O’Scannlain notes, everyone involved agreed that the three employees were fired for religious reasons.

The question was whether World Vision qualified for the religious exemption to the Civil Rights Act, which normally prohibits any organization from hiring or firing based on religious beliefs.

The former employees asserted that both law and legal precedent limited “religious organizations” to “churches, synagogues, and the like.” The Ninth Circuit, who produced some of the precedents they pointed to, disagreed.

Read More: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2010/08/court_world_vis.html

Additional Story: Other Christian Agencies filed as ‘friends of the court’ on behalf of World Vision

The Center for Law & Religious Freedom represented amici curiae Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, Center for Public Justice, Christian Legal Society, National Association of Evangelicals, Samaritan’s Purse, and Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America

The case involves the scope of Title VII religious exemption protecting the ability of a religious organization to make staffing decisions based on the organization’s shared faith commitments.

The Center participated in an amici curiae brief urging the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm the district court decision in favor of World Vision, which the district court found to be a protected religious organization.

The amici brief articulates a legal framework for determining whether an employer qualifies as a religious organization protected by the Title VII religious exemption and argues that World Vision qualifies for this protection.

L. Martin Nussbaum of Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP and Gregory S. Baylor of the Center for Law and Justice made presentations to the Appeals court on behalf of the religious agencies.