Stone Cross

Anchoring the Religious Hiring Freedom in Ohio Law

Ohio employment law, unlike federal law (Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act) and the employment laws of other states, has included no exemption for religious organizations such that they can legally consider religion when deciding who to hire. A guide to church-state laws produced by the Pew-funded Roundtable of Religion and Social Welfare Policy in 2002 noted that Ohio would, of course, take into account First Amendment religious freedom principles if a religious employer was charged with discrimination, but it also referenced a state court case which noted that the state had ample opportunity to create an exemption, so its absence meant that the legislature did not intend to broadly protect religious hiring by religious organizations.

That problem, that vulnerability, has now been repaired. When Gov. John Kasich recently signed into law Ohio’s budget bill, HB 59, he put into Ohio’s law books this new language for the employment law code that creates for the state the same religious hiring exemption that is in the federal Title VII:

“(R) This section does not apply to a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of an individual of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by that religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities.”

Next question: what does this change mean for Ohio procurement law-for the universal provision in state grants prohibiting job discrimination on a long list of grounds, but without a religious hiring exemption?

H.T. to Scott Arnold and Chip Weiant.