Updated Monday, March 24, 2008

Judge dismisses suit against Southwestern

Baptist Press

FORT WORTH, Texas - A federal judge has ruled in favor of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and its president, Paige Patterson, in a lawsuit by a former theology professor who claimed she was wrongly dismissed from a tenure-track position because she is a woman.

Sheri L. Klouda filed the federal employment lawsuit alleging breach of contract, fraud and related claims on March 8, 2007, and had sought unspecified damages and a jury trial.

Instead, in a ruling filed March 20 in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas, Judge John McBryde signed a judgment granting "summary judgment" dismissing "all of her alleged actions against defendants" and ordering Klouda to cover the plaintiffs' court costs.

Patterson's lawyer, J. Shelby Sharpe of Fort Worth said the judge followed well-established court opinions.

"The opinion he issued is soundly reasoned and the law properly applied to the record before him," Sharpe said.

Klouda's lawyer, Gary Richardson of Tulsa, Okla., said, history was against Klouda in the case.

"We knew that and we believe this case has merit," he said. "And most likely we will make the decision to appeal it. We haven't made that decision, but most likely that is what we'll do."

Richardson said he believes new laws are needed if "an entity can violate someone's civil rights and constitutional rights and not be held responsible ... and then hide behind doctrinal positions to justify it."

The defendants' attorneys had argued that the court had no jurisdiction because Klouda's tenure denial was on constitutionally protected religious grounds.

The judge agreed, writing in his ruling that seminary faculty are "hired, assigned, advanced, tenured, evaluated, and terminated on predominantly religious criteria" and that Klouda's classes "had sectarian goals."

Klouda earned a doctor of philosophy at Southwestern in 2002 and was elected by the trustees to her tenure-track position teaching Hebrew. A Criswell College graduate, Klouda left the seminary in 2006 and now teaches at Taylor University in Upland, Ind.

In the lawsuit, Klouda said Patterson assured her "personally and specifically" that her position was secure.

Patterson has stated that the seminary's policy prohibiting women from teaching theology to men is drawn from its desire to "model the local church." The ]http://www.sbc.net/bfm/default.asp|Baptist Faith and Message 2000], adopted by a majority of messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention that year, states that the role of senior pastor in local churches is limited to men. Patterson, according to the suit, believes the same standard applies to the seminary.

Klouda's case became widely known after a news story on Jan. 19, 2007, appeared in the Dallas Morning News following her denial of tenure. The story stemmed from comments of Baptist bloggers decrying Klouda's tenure denial in 2006.

Nearly two months later, Klouda hired Richardson and filed suit against the seminary. Richardson is a former U.S. attorney with a long history of winning large declaratory judgments.

Prior to her lawsuit, Klouda told the newspaper: "I don't think it was right to hire me to do this job, put me in the position where I, in good faith, assumed that I was working toward tenure, and then suddenly remove me without any cause other than gender."

Southwestern trustee chairman Van McClain said the school "allowed her to teach a full two years after she was told she would not have tenure" and that "I do not know of any women teaching in any of the SBC seminaries presently in the area of theology or biblical languages."

Dorothy Patterson, wife of the Southwestern president, teaches theology at the school, but only before female students, the seminary said.