The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that the Wisconsin Supreme Court violated a Catholic charity’s First Amendment Rights.
The case involved the Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB), which is the charitable arm of the Diocese of Superior in Wisconsin. Part of the CCB’s mission is offering a variety of philanthropic services — including to non-Catholics. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted when delivering the opinion of the court, the CCB provides “services to the poor and disadvantaged” regardless of the recipient’s religious background and seeks to “be an effective sign of the charity of Christ.”
The CCB also oversees four “separately incorporated” sub-entities that are a part of this case. According to Oyez the sub-entities “are primarily funded through government contracts and do not receive direct funding from the Diocese. Neither employees nor service recipients are required to be of any particular religious faith, and the programs do not provide religious training or attempt to promote the Catholic faith.”
As Sotomayor noted, the Diocese of Superior in Wisconsin “exercises control” over both the CCB and its sub-entities.
Wisconsin state law permits certain religious organizations to be exempt from contributing to the state’s unemployment system. Almost a decade ago, however, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) denied a request from CCB and its sub-groups to have an exemption from contributing to Wisconsin’s unemployment system. The DWD argued that CCB and its sub-entities “did not qualify for the exemption because it did not establish that it is operated primarily for religious purposes,” according to Cornell Law School.
Eventually, the case made its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which ruled that the CCB does not qualify for an exemption because its charitable activities were not for “primarily religious purposes.”
But on Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s application of state law that exempts certain religious organizations from paying unemployment compensation taxes violated the CCB’s First Amendment rights.
“The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s interpretation of [state law] imposed a denominational preference by differentiating between religions based on theological lines,” the court ruled. “[P]etitioners’ eligibility for the exemption ultimately turns on inherently religious choices (namely, whether to proselytize or serve only co-religionists in the course of charitable work), not ‘”secular criteria”‘ that ‘happen to have a “disparate impact” upon different religious organizations.’”
Writing for the unanimous court, Sotomayor explained that the Wisconsin Supreme Court erred when it deemed the CCB’s petition for exemption ineligible on the basis that the CCB and its sub-groups do not “attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith.”
“Petitioners’ Catholic faith … bars them from satisfying those criteria,” Sotomayor wrote for the court.
“It is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government maintain ‘neutrality between religion and religion,’” Sotomayor wrote. “There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one.”
Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown-Jackson issued concurring opinions.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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