A discrimination lawsuit filed Tuesday against Academy of Holy Angels and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis alleges they didn’t renew her employment contract as a school librarian because of her transgender status and sex.

The lawsuit alleges the Richfield Catholic high school and the archdiocese violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act in 2022 by not entering into a new contract with Reyzl Grace, who served as a secular librarian, after she came out as transgender.

Reyzl Grace (Courtesy of Gender Justice)

While the MHRA does permit limited exemptions on religious grounds, the Legislature never intended for these exemptions to apply to secular employees, according to St. Paul-based Gender Justice, which along with its co-counsel, Wanta Thome, filed the lawsuit in Hennepin County District Court.

“Reyzl Grace’s story highlights the importance of ensuring that no employer in Minnesota has carte blanche to discriminate against employees simply because of who they are,” Brittany Stewart, senior staff attorney at Gender Justice, said in a statement. “We believe in a Minnesota where everyone is treated with dignity and respect, free from discrimination. This case is a crucial step toward that goal.”

Grace, who is Jewish, worked as the sole librarian at Holy Angels during the 2021-2022 school year. Her role required no ministerial duties, religious training or education, according to the lawsuit.

Grace informed Holy Angels in March 2022 of her intention to renew her employment contract for another year. Principal Heidi Foley initially expressed a desire for her to continue in her role, the lawsuit says.

Foley’s demeanor changed when Grace revealed she had come out as transgender and was starting the process of transitioning to live as her female self, the lawsuit says. “Foley said the Archdiocese would not support (Grace’s) transition, and it would not be possible for (Grace) to continue working at the school if she was determined to transition,” the lawsuit alleges.

About a week later, Grace again met with Foley. Grace was given a copy of the “Guiding Principles for Catholic Schools and Religious Education Concerning Human Sexuality and Sexual Identity,” which, according to the lawsuit, represents the Archdiocese’s position on sexual and gender identity.

The “Guiding Principles” state the Catholic Church’s foundational beliefs include that “[a] person’s embrace of his or her God-given sexual identity is an essential part of living a fulfilled relationship with God, with oneself, and with each other” and “[t]he harmonious integration of a person’s sexual identity with his or her sex is an expression of the inner unity and reality of the human person made body and soul in the image and likeness of God.”

The lawsuit says the document “goes on to instruct schools who teach in the name of the Catholic Church to discriminate against transgender and gender-nonconforming students by, for example, refusing to recognize their pronouns and preferred name if they are inconsistent with a student’s sex assigned at birth, and refusing to allow LGBTQ+ students to express their sexual identity.”

The school’s employee handbook does not explicitly contain or mention the Guiding Principles, and Grace had never previously been shown the document, according to the lawsuit.

Applied again

After reviewing the Guiding Principles, Grace said the document was vague and she did not believe she could abide by the directives. “It was clear to Grace that what she was being told was that she would not be allowed to work at (Holy Angels) given that she is transgender,” the lawsuit says.

Foley told Grace that the Guiding Principles document was the only reason she was not being offered a renewed contract, the lawsuit alleges.

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At the end of the meeting, Foley told Grace that she should not tell anyone about their conversations and instead should say “she was ‘pursuing other options,’ as the school wanted to control the messaging on this,” the lawsuit continues.

Foley asked Grace to submit a formal letter of resignation by the end of the school year, the lawsuit says. She did not, and in June 2022 sent a letter to the school’s administration recounting the events in writing. She did not receive a written reply to her letter.

Later that month, Holy Angels posted a job opening for the library/media specialist position. “As with the previous posting for the position, the posting did not list any ministerial duties and did not require any religious training or education,” the lawsuit states.

Grace applied on June 21, 2022, using the same application that had been used the year prior with updated information to include the experience she gained during her year of employment at the school. She did not get a response until August 1, 2022, when a human resources representative sent her a letter thanking her for the application and indicating the position had been filled.

Human rights complaint

Grace filed charges of discrimination with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights against the school and archdiocese in April 2023. They entered replies claiming the archdiocese “does not operate, supervise or control (Holy Angels),” the lawsuit says.

Grace, who is seeking monetary damages, including back pay, addressed media Tuesday outside the county courthouse in Minneapolis.

“You have heard it said that allowing religious institutions to discriminate against LGBT people is to the protection of religious freedom, a safeguarding of the church from state interference,” Grace said. “But I say onto you, that allowing an institution to discriminate against employees for the shape of their bodies or the shape of their love is not only a violation of state law, but also a curtailment of religious freedom, a weighting of the scales that favors certain readings, certain interpretations, certain voices, over others.”

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said they are reviewing the lawsuit with its legal counsel and not commenting.

Holy Angels issued a statement, saying: “We take the allegations seriously. We are in the process of reviewing the allegations, but we are not able to make further comments because the claims involve confidential personnel matters.”

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