Religious employers are claiming broad new rights to discriminate — what can be done?

Since the Civil Rights Era, employees across the United States have relied on antidiscrimination laws to protect them at work. State and federal civil rights laws have helped make workplaces safer and more inclusive. But what if you work for a religious employer? In recent years, religious employers have asserted broad rights to discriminate against employees — even employees who do not have religious job duties. They’ve done so by developing expansive theories relating to two doctrines in particular: the church-autonomy doctrine and the ministerial exception. Our panel of legal experts will discuss the importance of antidiscrimination laws, the rising threats to those laws in religious workplaces, and what civil rights lawyers can do about it.