Catholic Law School Claims Profs Are Ministerial Employees

The Ave Maria School of Law claims in court papers that three former professors suing the school were ministerial employees, making the Catholic institution exempt from their legal claims.

The school contends it is protected from suit by the professors under the First Amendment's establishment and free exercise clauses, the National Law Journal reports. The school also claims courts should refuse to hear the case because of "ecclesiastical abstention.”

The professors are represented by Bloomfield Hills, Mich., lawyer Deborah Gordon, who says her clients were fired for questioning how the law school was being run. She takes issue with the legal theory advanced by Tom Monaghan, the school's founder and financier. “Are you people kidding or what?” she said in an interview with the NLJ.