In a judicial about-face, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed itself and upheld a lower court’s dismissal of sex discrimination claims against Gannon University, a Catholic diocesan college in Erie, Pa., brought by a woman who said she was ousted from her post as chaplain only because she is a woman.
In Petruska v. Gannon University, the court vacated a groundbreaking opinion authored by the late Judge Edward R. Becker just prior to his death in May that had revived Lynette M. Petruska’s lawsuit and rejected the university’s defense under the “ministerial exception” to Title VII.
