Liberty, Diversity, Academic Freedom, and Survival: Preferential Hiring Among Religiously-Affliated Institutions of Higher Education

This article discusses the exemptions given to religious educational institutions from the usual Title VII protections afforded employees. The author supports the use of such exemptions when they promote diversity and protecting the fundamental foundation of the institution itself, but warns that there is a point where the exemptions must not be used even when they are within the power of the institution to invoke. Such inappropriate instances include promoting faculty or granting tenure to faculty members who are not of the religious persuasion of the institution, or hiring the best and brightest faculty over the professor who simply agrees with the religious ideals promoted by the institution.