MADISON, Wis. — Many religious school teachers are not protected by Wisconsin laws aimed at stopping discrimination in the workplace, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

In a 4-3 decision, the court said in Coulee Catholic Schools v. Labor and Industry Review Commission that religious schools have a constitutional right to hire and fire employees to carry out their missions, and that includes many teachers.

Justice Michael Gableman said all employees whose positions are closely linked to the religious mission of their employers cannot make claims like age, gender and racial discrimination under the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act. In the past, courts had generally only exempted religious leaders like ordained clergy and ministers from such laws.

Dissenting Justice Patrick Crooks said the decision "extends a free pass to religious schools to discriminate against their lay employees." He said the ruling also jeopardized the legality of Milwaukee's school-vouchers program, a claim rejected by the majority.

The decision dismisses an age-discrimination complaint filed by a former first-grade Catholic school teacher who claimed she was let go in a 2002 downsizing because she was 53. The woman, Wendy Ostlund, had taught at St. Patrick's Elementary School in Onalaska since 1974.

The school is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of La Crosse, whose attorney praised the decision as "a very significant reiteration of the long-standing tradition of religious freedom in Wisconsin."

"This case does not represent any type of denigration of the importance of civil rights legislation," said attorney James Birnbaum, who denied age discrimination took place. "What it does is it recognizes the constitutional pre-eminence of religious freedom. It trumps even the fair-employment laws."

But Ostlund's attorney, Dawn Marie Harris, said the ruling was a blow to religious school teachers who already earn less pay and benefits than their public school counterparts. She said the court ignored decades of precedent to essentially legalize discrimination, "which has never been a part of Catholicism."

Yesterday’s majority opinion overturns decisions by an administrative law judge, a trial court and an appeals court, which all ruled Ostlund’s complaint could move forward because her position was largely secular and not ministerial in nature. Those courts had applied a long-standing legal test and concluded her "primary duties" were not to promote religion.

Gableman said that test allowed the state to interfere with employment decisions involving religious leaders in violation of state and U.S. constitutional protections for religion. He adopted a new test that exempts all employees important to a group's religious mission from employment laws.

In Ostlund's case, she taught a traditional academic curriculum as well as religion, led students in prayer and incorporated "religious examples, symbols and values into the lessons," Gableman wrote.

"It is obvious that Ostlund's role was of high importance and closely linked to the mission of the school — the inculcation of a Christ-centered concept of life," he wrote. "She was an important instrument in a faith-based organization's efforts to pass on its faith to the next generation."

Gableman said the ruling did not provide a blanket exception for all religious school teachers, and that future cases would be judged based on the role of the employee and employer.

Birnbaum said he believed virtually all elementary teachers would now be exempted from nondiscrimination laws but it was unclear whether high school teachers who teach specific subjects like chemistry would be.

Crooks said the ruling, because of its sweeping language, would cover virtually all religious school teachers.

He said it also undermined a 1998 high court ruling that upheld the legality of Milwaukee's landmark program that gives students the option of attending private and religious schools at taxpayer expense.

If mostly secular teachers such as Ostlund are found to promote religion, then the program must violate the separation of church and state, Crooks wrote. A key provision in the program requiring participating schools to comply with nondiscrimination laws also must be unconstitutional, he wrote.

Gableman wrote that Crooks was mistaken and said the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that upheld Cleveland’s school-voucher program "settled this issue."