The National Labor Relations Board cannot force a religious college in Montana to bargain with a labor union, ruled the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week. In its ruling, the court reversed an earlier NLRB decision finding that the Roman Catholic-affiliated Great Falls University was “essentially secular” and could thus not raise a religious objection to collective bargaining.

In reversing the NLRB, the appeals court adopted a test proposed in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by a collection of Seventh-day Adventist organizations, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council, Loma Linda University and Adventist Health, and some other religious organizations. This test requires the NLRB to determine only: 1) whether the university holds itself out to the public as a religious institution; 2) whether it is non-profit; and 3) whether it is religiously affiliated.

The decision is an important victory for religious freedom in several ways, says attorney Alan Reinach, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council, one of the organizations that participated in the friend-of-the-court brief. “First, it recognizes that religious colleges are entitled to avoid bargaining with labor unions as a matter of religious faith. But the court’s reasoning also recognized that judicial scrutiny of the religious beliefs, motivations, and practices of a religious institution is problematic, and that courts should avoid these kinds of inquiries.”