Pictured: Dr. Deweese-Boyd, who is currently suing Gordon College. To learn more, read our coverage of the lawsuit on our Substack website.
In February of 2017, Dr. Margie DeWeese-Boyd was denied a promotion to full professorship at Gordon College, despite working as an associate professor of social work for the institution for thirteen years. She was well-loved by students in the program and received unanimous recommendations for the position by the faculty senate. According to an article from New England In-House, Provost Janel Curry denied Dr. DeWeese-Boyd the promotion due to her “scholarly productivity ‘[not reaching] acceptable levels’ for a Gordon faculty member…and [claimed] that her professionalism and follow-through on institutional projects about which she may not feel passionate were lacking.” Dr. DeWeese-Boyd filed a lawsuit shortly thereafter, claiming that she was denied the promotion because of her criticism on “the college’s policies and practices concerning LGBTQ+ individuals.” This lawsuit is currently still under litigation, complicated by the fact that Dr. DeWeese-Boyd was among the many victims of Gordon’s financial difficulties.
Now, I have heard multiple arguments in favor of the college. The first is that the decision to deny the promotion and ultimately fire DeWeese-Boyd was not discrimination, but rather the college choosing to not promote a professor who failed to meet their standards of scholarly productivity. Furthermore, it has been said that firing her was a difficult, but necessary decision to keep the institution stable.
Respectively, these arguments seem weak to me. If the decision against her promotion was due to a lack of quality in her scholarship, I have difficulty imagining that she would receive a unanimous vote from the faculty senate in favor of her promotion. With this fact in mind, I also have difficulty seeing why the college would choose an associate professor of Social Work (a department already made frankly anemic and consisting of, I believe, two associate professors at the time this piece was written) as a victim of their layoffs. It could be the case that Gordon chose to fire a much-loved faculty member in an already struggling program simply because they had to, and that this was a reasonable, difficult decision to make for the preservation of the college.
But considering the fact that the college is currently engaged in a lawsuit, coupled with the fact that she was a vocal critic of the college’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies, it seems fair to speculate that there were multiple factors at play in this decision.
The second argument (and what makes me entirely skeptical to the college’s claims) is that the college was within its rights to deny Dr DeWeese-Boyd a promotion based on the “Ministerial Exception” doctrine.
In court, Gordon College has attempted to use the “Ministerial Exception” doctrine to defend itself for their decision to deny DeWeese-Boyd full professorship. The Ministerial Exception doctrine, in short, is drawn from the free exercise clause found in the First Amendment. This states that the courts cannot apply anti-discrimination laws to the employment disputes of religious institutions if one of the parties is a “ministerial employee.”
It is important to recognize that Gordon does not require its professors to be religiously trained or hold any sort of ministerial role. The college only requires them to sign a memorandum stating that they agree to “support the goals and objectives of Gordon College as a distinctively Christian institution of higher learning.” There is simply no foundation to the claim that Gordon College professors can be considered a “minister.” Furthermore, Dr. DeWeese-Boyd has repeatedly stated that she never held herself to be a minister inside or outside Gordon. In my estimation, it was not very surprising when the college’s attempt to use the Ministerial Exception was denied by the Essex Superior Court earlier this year.
For me, the college’s decision to use this defense against Dr. DeWeese-Boyd is telling because it implies that the college indeed discriminated against her. Rather than claim that this was not a case of discrimination at all, but of administrative pragmatism, the college attempted to argue that it had the right to discriminate against DeWeese-Boyd. This is problematic, especially considering the college’s memorandum that,
“[a]t its foundation, this case is an effort by Plaintiff to force Gordon to abandon its evangelical Christian beliefs and practices. The First Amendment prohibits exactly what Plaintiff is trying to do here, and Defendants therefore are entitled to judgement [in the college’s favor] on the pleadings.”
This statement coupled by Gordon’s attempt to use Ministerial Exception makes the argument that this is not a discrimination case hollow and without foundation. The college is arguing that Dr. DeWeese-Boyd’s discrimination lawsuit is an effort on her part “to force Gordon to abandon its evangelical Christian beliefs and practices.”
However, since there is no singular evangelical Christian principle to inform how an institution may deny someone a promotion, one can only conclude from this statement that the college’s decision was based on DeWeese-Boyd’s criticism of the administration.
There is no other way to square it. In light of the facts, the school’s decision to deny Dr. DeWeese-Boyd a promotion was not based on a lack of scholarly work, but rather her critique of Gordon’s anti-LGBTQ+ stances. This is a textbook case of intentional discrimination by an institution against one of its employees.
The college’s attempt to defend itself from DeWeese-Boyd’s lawsuit has been shot down. The Essex Superior Court ruled that she is not a minister. As the case now moves to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, the results of this lawsuit remain to be seen. In the meantime, however, I urge you to stand with Dr. DeWeese-Boyd as she fights against this unjust discrimination from the administration. A faculty member who offered empathy and support to the LGBTQ community was denied a promotion and possibly fired, for not only caring about these students, but also urging the college to do the same. May God be with her.