Fire chief’s religious discrimination suit reaches Supreme Court

Stockton, Calif., fire chief Ronald Hittle didn’t think he was doing anything wrong when he attended a leadership conference hosted by a local church in August 2010. The veteran firefighter’s supervisor had told him to obtain leadership training. But one year later, Hittle found himself without a job, fired by the city for using city time and a vehicle to attend what it called a “religious leadership event.”

Hittle, along with some fellow employees, attended the Global Leadership Summit, which was hosted by a local church. The event typically includes videos from a wide variety of speakers, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and even Bono, the frontman of the rock band U2.

In a Supreme Court petition filed Oct. 15, Hittle’s attorneys asked the court to review lower court rulings that sided with the city despite Hittle’s evidence that city officials discriminated against him because of his religious beliefs. A federal judge ruled against him in 2022, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling last year on appeal.

Hittle’s claim never made it to a jury. That’s because of a 1973 ruling by the Supreme Court, McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, in which the court set out a three-step process for analyzing discrimination claims. First, Hittle had to show a prima facie case—evidence that, if believed, would show religious discrimination.

Hittle cleared that hurdle, said both trial and appeals courts, based on evidence that his supervisor accused him of being part of a “Christian coalition” and told him not to “be a part of anything like that as the fire chief.” City manager Bob Deis also told Hittle of “his understanding that there is a ‘clique’ in the fire department that is associated with religion.” Both an investigative report and the notice of his removal also demonstrated that Hittle’s attendance at a “religious event” was the reason for his removal.

Once Hittle showed a prima facie case under the McDonnell Douglas test, the burden shifted to the city to articulate, but not prove, a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for his dismissal. The appeals court panel concluded that the city did so by claiming that it fired Hittle because of “other persons’ perceptions” that the city was endorsing religion, and “constitutional and business concerns.”

As a final and third step under the test, Hittle had to demonstrate that the city’s reasons were a pretext and the real reason for his dismissal was his religious beliefs. The appeals court panel concluded that the real reason city officials fired Hittle was because the event he attended was “of no benefit” to the city.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, Hittle’s attorneys argued that the McDonnell Douglas test is inconsistent with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Title VII contains no such test, they said, but merely bars most employers from discriminating based on age, sex, religion, and national origin. The federal rules allow the court to enter summary judgment—to rule without a trial to resolve factual disputes—only when the material facts of a case are not in dispute.

According to First Liberty attorney Stephanie Taub, some studies indicate that as many as 77 percent of employment discrimination cases never get to a jury but are ruled on by a judge without hearing testimony. “Virtually all of those would be decided in favor of the employer,” said Taub. “So this heavily stacks the deck.”

Taub said that McDonnell Douglas focuses on the wrong issue—whether the employee can show that the reason for termination offered by the employer is false. “So this is not exactly what’s going on, because sometimes there could be more than one reason,” she said. “So the real question should be, is there enough evidence to show that you were fired because of this protected characteristic?”

Taub said the McDonnell Douglas test evolved to help judges evaluate evidence under a Title VII claim when such cases could only be heard by judges. That changed after Congress amended Title VII in 1991 to provide for trial by jury.

“One of the beautiful things about our court system is we have juries, so it’s not a judge that is solely responsible for deciding these questions, [but] you have the judge and the jury who are together ruling on these cases,” Taub said.

The Supreme Court will hear the case if four of the nine justices vote to accept it. That possibility is more likely given a split among the appellate circuits over how to interpret the McDonnell Douglas test. A decision could come at any time between now and the end of the court’s current term in June.