In Sander v. Westchester Reform Temple, 2025 NY Slip Op 06958 (N.Y. Ct. Appeals Dec. 16, 2025), the New York Court of Appeals held that plaintiff’s discrimination claim was barred by the “ministerial exception.”
From the decision:
Plaintiff Jessie Sander alleges that she was fired from her teaching position at Westchester Reform Temple for co-authoring a blog post critical of Israel and Zionism, in violation of Labor Law § 201-d (2) (c). That provision prohibits an employer from taking adverse action against an employee based on legal “recreational activities.”
We have not had occasion to consider the scope of section 201-d or whether its protection of “recreational activities” encompasses the public expression of one’s views. The Legislature appears not to have considered this problem when it enacted the statute in 1992, well before the proliferation of various mechanisms for disseminating information online. We reserve this question of statutory interpretation for another day, though. Whatever the scope of section 201-d, Plaintiff’s claim is barred by the ministerial exception, which precludes application of employment discrimination laws to claims involving an employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers. Plaintiff’s offer letter conclusively establishes that her core teaching responsibilities were religious, rather than secular, in nature.
Unfortunately, we will need to wait for another day for the Court’s ruling on whether plaintiff’s blogging and, separately, the content of her blog post is protected recreational activity under Labor Law § 201-d.