Geneva College Files Religious Freedom Lawsuit

Geneva College Files Religious Freedom Lawsuit

Geneva College, a Christian college in Pennsylvania which self-identifies as being “rooted in the evangelical and reformed traditions,” has filed a federal lawsuit against non-discrimination laws which were employed to keep Geneva from advertising job openings limited to Christian candidates.

CareerLink, a website run by the state, allows employers to post jobs open to the public, but the website is required to abide by federal laws governing nondiscrimination.

However, Geneva College wants to level the playing field, according to Timothy Tracey, an attorney with the Christian Legal Society, which, along with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), filed the lawsuit on Geneva’s behalf.

The chief question to be answered here is whether or not the government is impeding Geneva’s First Amendment right by preventing its job announcements.

What’s interesting is that the forum for the lawsuit—job postings— are by their very nature, exclusive. For instance, one job posting requires seven-years management experience. Well, that announcement has effectively disqualified anyone without the requisite experience from obtaining the job. The pool of applicants must be narrowed somehow. So, is religious-affiliation not a lawful tool for narrowing the applicant pool?

According to Sara Rose, a staff-attorney for the ACLY of Pennsylvania, “They’re [Geneva] basically putting the state between a rock and a hard place. “For Geneva College to say it needed to advertise for a position on a state-funded website in order to practice its religion is far-fetched,” she said. One may take Rose’s comments to be hyperbolic—“practice[ing] its religion” is not the primary issue. The issue is whether or not Geneva must waive its First Amendment right in order to advertise on a government-sponsored website.

Duquesne University School of Law Constitutional Law professor Robert S. Barker weighed in on the debate, and is quoted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as saying, “If we have religious freedom in this country, then a religiously affiliated institution ought to be able to maintain the integrity of its institution without the government interfering.”