A federal appeals court has upheld Christian Brothers Automotive Corporation’s policy of granting franchises only to professing Christians, rejecting a legal challenge from a Jewish applicant.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the faith-based auto repair company, which says its mission is to “glorify God by providing ethical and excellent service to its customers.”
Christian Brothers requires prospective franchisees to be “spiritually aligned with the company and prepared to share a personal Christian testimony.” Court records show the company has more than 250 franchises in about 30 states, including at least two ethnic Jews who identify as Christians.
Evan Domanic, who identifies as both ethnically and religiously Jewish, applied for a franchise in 2020 and reached the third stage of an eight-step process before his application was ended.
Domanic filed suit in 2022, claiming the decision amounted to discrimination based on Jewish ethnicity. A federal district court in Texas ruled for Christian Brothers, concluding that the policy distinguished applicants on religious rather than racial or ethnic grounds.
Domanic argued on appeal that Jewish ethnicity and religion should be treated as inseparable under federal civil rights law. The 5th Circuit disagreed, saying that position was “in tension with the Supreme Court’s longstanding precedent that § 1981 does not reach religious discrimination.”
The court noted that federal law bars racial and ethnic discrimination in contractual relationships but does not extend the same prohibition to discrimination based solely on religion.
“All the evidence points to this being an instance of religious and not ethnic discrimination: Christian Brothers franchises only to professing Christians and, indeed, its franchisees include ethnic Jews who meet that religious qualification,” the court stated.
The panel also concluded that “no evidence whatsoever suggests Christian Brothers, behind the façade of a religious policy, is in reality engaging in covert antisemitism.”
Founded in 1982, Christian Brothers Automotive publicly identifies as a Christian company and says its business philosophy is guided by the biblical command to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
