In the final days of his battle with cancer, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edward R. Becker remained hard at work finalizing a ground-breaking opinion handed down Wednesday — four days after his death — that revives a high-ranking minister’s sex discrimination suit against a Catholic university.
In Petruska v. Gannon University, Becker held that the “ministerial exception” to Title VII should be “carefully tailored” and applied only when the alleged discrimination somehow relates to “religious belief, religious doctrine, or the internal regulations of a church.”
