LYNCHBURG — Liberty University defended its decision to fire Ellenor Zinski, a transgender woman, from her job at the university in August 2023, arguing her termination was based on the school’s religious beliefs, and did not constitute discrimination based on sex in violation of federal law.
The arguments were made Thursday in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, asking the court to throw out a lawsuit brought by Zinski against the university accusing the school of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment, including on the basis of sex.
In a news release Friday, the university’s lawyers also accused Zinski of attempting “to set up Liberty University for this lawsuit” when she was hired for a full-time job at the school’s information technology helpdesk in February 2023. Five months later, Zinski sent an email to the school’s human resources department stating she identified as a trans woman, and would be legally changing her name to Ellenor.
People are also reading…
Zinski went by the name Jonathan Zinski when hired by Liberty, according to the lawsuit she filed against the university in July. Zinski received positive performance reviews during her tenure at the school, with a supervisor indicating she was “doing well and meeting or exceeding all of their metrics,” according to her lawsuit.
In the statement released Friday in conjunction with the reply brief filed with U.S. District, Liberty’s lawyer said Zinski “violated Liberty University’s doctrinal statement and its employment requirements, and his claims should be dismissed.”
“Zinski set up Liberty University,” Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said. Liberty Counsel is a Christian ministry, and law firm representing the university in the lawsuit.
In the court filing and news release, the university and Liberty Counsel referred to Zinksi as Jonathan Zinski instead of by her name, Ellenor Zinski.
“His attempt to undermine the university will not succeed because the law protects the ability of religious organizations to make religious decisions consistent with their mission,” Staver said.
In response to Staver’s comments, Wyatt Rolla, one of Zinski’s attorneys at ACLU of Virginia, said “it’s strange for Liberty University to disparage Ellenor after discriminating against her.”
“She was a highly successful employee for Liberty University whose supervisor found she met all of her obligations, and who had every intention of continuing to do so,” Rolla said in an email to The News & Advance. “Ultimately, Liberty University is the one who fired Ellenor, because of her gender identity, and no matter your religious beliefs, that’s illegal sex discrimination.
On Aug. 8, 2023, Zinski received a termination letter from Liberty that cited “denying biological and chromosomal sex assigned at birth” as the basis for the decision.
“The letter makes clear that Ms. Zinski’s employment was terminated because of her transition from her sex/gender assigned at birth [male] to the sex/gender for which she identifies [female],” her lawsuit stated.
In its defense, Liberty pointed to the letter it sent to Zinski notifying her of her termination, which said “modern biology and genetics have confirmed our ability to discern and confirm God’s design for male and female.”
New practices that employ hormone therapy to simulate a new sex or gender are “out of step” with Liberty’s Doctrinal Statement, the university told Zinski.
Liberty said the Doctrinal Statement was provided to Zinski as a part of her hiring process and she was required to acknowledge it upon accepting employment at the university.
In its Nov. 14 court filing, Liberty used a comparison in an attempt to argue that Zinski’s termination was based on religious grounds.
If Liberty hires a woman — identified as Jane Doe in the court filing — who later announces she has converted to Islam and would be demonstrating her conversion in an “outward” way by wearing Islamic dress and praying regularly, the university maintained it could legally terminate her employment on religious grounds.
In this scenario, if the Muslim woman argues the termination of her employment violates Title VII “because only Muslim women are required to wear a burka,” Liberty said it would argue its “decision was explicitly and undeniably religious, even though Jane Doe’s religious beliefs manifested in something unique to female Muslims.”
Under an adjusted version of the analogy, Liberty stated if a person identified as “Jonathan Doe” meets with the university’s human resources department “wearing a burka” and states he has been in the process of transitioning to identify with Islam and transitioning to a woman, the university’s decision to terminate “Jonathan Doe” would also be based on a religious belief.
“It mattered not what the gender of the employee was, it was the employee’s outward manifestation of religious beliefs directly contrary to Liberty University’s that resulted in the termination,” Liberty said in the court filing.
Both the First Amendment’s ministerial exception and Title VII allow Liberty to decide which employees align with its religious mission and beliefs, as well as to refrain from associating with and employing people who are not aligned with its “distinctive Christian workplace,” the university said.
In response to Liberty’s previous filings to get the lawsuit dismissed, Zinski’s lawyers said, “Simply put, if Ms. Zinski identified as a male, she would not have been terminated.”
“Ms. Zinski was terminated not because of her religious beliefs; she was terminated because she announced that she identified as one gender rather than another gender,” her lawyers said.
Mark Hand, 434-385-5556