The University of Chicago’s Cass Sunstein has posted to the Social Science Research Network a working paper on whether the law can ban sex discrimination at religious institutions – a fraught issue for many church-based colleges. In brief: Yes, he says.
“There is no general barrier to applying such laws to religious institutions. Whether it is legitimate to do so depends on the extent of the interference with religious convictions and the strength of the state’s justification. Reasonable people can reach different conclusions about particular cases,” Sunstein writes. But in some of those cases, he adds, “religious practice would have to yield.”
