The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis lawfully dismissed a “transgender” librarian from a Catholic school, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled this week, reaffirming broad constitutional protections for religious employment decisions.
The dispute began in 2023 after Reyzl Grace MoChridhe, then a librarian at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Minnesota, publicly announced his plan to “transition” ahead of the 2022-2023 school year. After hearing the news, the school declined to renew his contract and began searching for a replacement, CatholicVote previously reported.
MoChridhe filed a discrimination complaint alleging the archdiocese and school illegally discriminated on the basis of sex. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights allowed the case to proceed under the state’s Human Rights Act.
A district court later dismissed the claims against the archdiocese, holding that the school’s employment decision was protected by church autonomy, KARE, NBC’s affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul, reported.
In affirming the district court’s ruling, the appeals court this week concluded that adjudicating MoChridhe’s allegations would violate First Amendment protections because the archdiocese’s employment decision rested 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, which represents MoChridhe in the suit, said the decision applies only to the archdiocese. The lawsuit against the school itself is still pending. The group said it “strongly disagrees” with the court’s reasoning and is weighing next steps.
The archdiocese welcomed the ruling, saying it underscores long-standing constitutional protections for religious institutions.
“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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