In recent years, American politicians have become increasingly concerned that judges who identify as Christian are making decisions based on that identity—that Christian judges harbor a certain “dogma” within them that shapes their decision making. In this article, we investigate whether this concern is warranted by examining how such judges handle claims that are brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits private discrimination in employment on the basis of religion. By focusing on decision making in cases of private discrimination—rather than public discrimination—we make progress on a theoretical conundrum that has dogged previous efforts to identify causal effects in religious accommodation cases. However, our tests produce little evidence to support the idea that Christian judges are more likely than their non-Christian colleagues to favor claimants, even in this alternative domain. Our findings therefore suggest that the current political focus on possible bias among Christian judges is empirically unfounded, at least in situations of religious accommodation.

中文翻译：

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内在的教条？检查私人标题 VII 索赔中的宗教偏见

近年来，美国政界人士越来越担心那些认定为基督徒的法官是基于这种身份做出决定的——基督徒法官在他们内部存在某种影响他们决策的“教条”。在本文中，我们通过审查此类法官如何处理根据 1964 年《民权法案》第七章提出的索赔来调查这种担忧是否有道理，该法案禁止基于宗教的就业歧视。通过专注于私人歧视案件的决策——而不是公共歧视——我们在一个理论难题上取得了进展，该难题一直困扰着以前在确定宗教住宿案件中的因果影响方面的努力。然而，我们的测试几乎没有证据支持基督徒法官比他们的非基督徒同事更有可能支持索赔人的观点，即使在这个替代领域也是如此。因此，我们的研究结果表明，当前对基督教法官可能存在偏见的政治关注在经验上是没有根据的，至少在宗教适应的情况下是这样。