(RNS) — A Chicago-area church led by bestselling author and pastor Dane Ortlund must pay $93,000 in back wages and damages to a former staffer after a judge ruled the church retaliated against her.
Administrative Judge Azeema Akram of the Illinois Human Rights Commission ruled last week that Naperville Presbyterian Church’s firing of Emily Hyland in 2021, after she claimed she had been mistreated because of her gender, qualified as retaliation and violated Illinois law.
“Complainant successfully proved retaliation by a preponderance of the evidence, as she was able to show that she engaged in a protected activity when she complained about sex-based discrimination, that Respondent knew about it, and that there was a causal nexus between her complaints and her subsequent termination,” Akram wrote in her decision.
Akram also ruled that Hyland failed to prove the church had discriminated against her. Church officials argued that Hyland was fired for poor job performance and denied any retaliation.
Emily Hyland. (Courtesy photo)
The ruling came just over five years after Hyland was terminated from her role at Naperville Presbyterian, a Presbyterian Church in America congregation, where she had worked for seven years as a director of operations. She had also been a member of the congregation for about 15 years at the time of her firing.
“I feel vindicated that what I believed to be true years ago was supported by testimony and evidence,” Hyland told RNS.
The ruling describes a fraught working relationship between Hyland and Ortlund, who became pastor of Naperville Presbyterian in 2020. Tensions between the two began a few months after Ortlund started as pastor, according to the ruling, mostly over a lack of communication.
Ortlund did not immediately respond to a texted request for comment.
Hyland claimed that Ortlund rarely spoke to her at the office but often sent emails after she had left for the day, making it hard for her to do her job. She also worried that Ortlund would meet with male staff members but not her, according to court records.
“Conversely, Pastor Ortlund — who was apparently an avid e-mail user — was frustrated that Complainant was not responding regularly (or at all) or to his e-mails, which he often sent outside of regular work hours,” Akram wrote.
A few months in, Ortlund had begun a paper trail of complaints against Hyland. Tensions got worse after Hyland sent a survey to the congregation with a question that pastors objected to, leading one of the pastors to complain that Hyland would not follow directions. That led to a January 2021 meeting where Hyland met with two pastors to discuss her performance.
Things went poorly at the meeting.
“For the next forty-five minutes, Pastor Ortlund apparently lectured Complainant about the three areas in which he had identified performance issues — poor communication, insubordination, and interpersonal relations and/or dynamics — and gave examples of each,” the ruling reads.
The three planned to meet again that March to discuss whether things had improved. But the working relationship continued to deteriorate, leading Hyland to worry she was being treated differently from her male colleagues, according to the ruling.
In early March, Hyland complained to church elders, alleging she was being bullied and mistreated. Just over a week later, she was fired.
“The haste and haphazardness with which Respondent fired Complainant suggests it was occasioned by her ‘insubordination,’ which in this instance consisted not of ‘poor performance,’ but of Complainant’s action of complaining to the elders about Pastor Ortlund’s differential treatment of women,” Akram wrote.
Church leaders argued they were not aware Hyland had complained about discrimination — a claim that Akram did not find credible.
“Simply put, Respondent’s witnesses were less credible than Complainant, as their testimony at trial seemed to discount even the possibility that gender discrimination could exist at the Church,” Akram wrote.
The judge awarded Hyland $39,246.60 in back wages, $50,000 in damages for emotional distress and $4,511 for out-of-pocket medical expenses. The church was also ordered to pay Hyland’s legal fees.
While courts rarely get involved in the inner workings of churches and other houses of worship, because of First Amendment protections for religious freedom, Akram wrote that she had jurisdiction because the case did not involve matters of doctrine or beliefs.
Hyland said that while she is relieved at the ruling, her departure from the church still hurts because she lost not just her job but her faith community, as she was no longer welcome at the church after her firing. “Nobody should ever lose their job and church community in the same afternoon,” she said.
She said Naperville Presbyterian had policies that would protect employees against retaliation but the church did not follow them. Hyland said she once believed the church would look out for her best interests. Now, her trust in church leaders is gone.
“It’s all an illusion,” she said.
Hyland, who recently converted to Catholicism, said she’d found a new church and moved on. She said churches need to listen to their employees rather than just trusting that the pastor is always right.
“People should feel safe in their organization to report concerns that they have about how they’re being treated,” she said.
