The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request to review the case of a former Stockton fire chief who alleged religious discrimination resulted in him being fired from his post.
Ronald Hittle’s appeal was turned aside without comment. It lets stand the rulings of a U.S. District Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled that Hittle’s case failed to the meet the long-established test for religious discrimination cases.
Two of the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, dissented. They believed the case should be heard to clarify when religious discrimination case have merit.
“Hittle presented ‘ample’ evidence of discriminatory intent on the part of those who decided to terminate him,” Thomas wrote.
Hittle was Stockton’s fire chief from 2005 to 2011. He was ousted after he was found to have been allowing activities related to his intense devotion to Christianity spill over into his working life for the city. Ordered to attend a leadership training program, Hittle chose one that was church-based. He was also alleged to have attended a religious event on city time and in a city vehicle.
Hittle’s legal team countered that the chief was doing a good job, had not violated city rules and that was unfairly singled out for his faith.
“The city showed extreme anti-religious bias and broke the law when it fired Chief Hittle.” one of his defenders, the First Liberty Institute, said in a statement as his case wound through the courts.
Justice Clarence Thomas, in the writing his dissent, said that the Hittle case deserved to heard.
He argued that a ruling on Hittle v. City of Stockton could clear up any confusion surrounding the last precedent, a 1973 case known as McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. The McDonnell case imposed a three-part test for lower courts to consider in order to rule in favor of plaintiffs. In Hittle’s case, both of the lower courts decided that Hittle’s arguments didn’t meet the requirements under McDonnell.
“This case highlights how McDonnell Douglas may distort a lower court’s analysis,” Thomas said.