Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 creates a statutory obligation for covered employers to make reasonable accommodations for workers’ religious observances, short of incurring an undue hardship. At a minimum, aggrieved employees generally must establish three elements in a failure-to-accommodate lawsuit: the plaintiff-employee had a bona fide…
About 50 years ago, Congress tweaked Title VII, a federal law that makes it unlawful to discriminate against workers based on their religion. It clarified that employers must “reasonably accommodate. . . an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice” unless the employer is “unable” to do so “without…
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employers from discriminating against employees based on religion. As the EEOC points out, “the law protects not only people who belong to traditional, organized religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, but also others who have sincerely held religious,…
Yesterday, the EEOC released a new fact sheet on “What To Do If You Face Antisemitism at Work,” which, according to this survey, is a relatively common occurrence. Most of the fact sheet generally applies to any protected class. For example, the fact sheet states, “Title VII … prohibits workplace…
I’ll explain why a federal court determined the complaint of a sports radio talk show host failed to state a claim upon which relief could be based. On October 21, 2021, the plaintiff filed an employment discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against his former employer, contending that he was terminated due…
Having done this now for over two decades, I understand how employers can often make employees feel underappreciated and even wronged. But not every slight and annoyance is tantamount to discrimination or retaliation. In a recent Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision, the plaintiff, a special-education teacher, appealed the dismissal…
Last night, I read a decision from a federal court in New York involving a plaintiff, who is Jewish, who claimed that her employer and her supervisor discriminated against her based on her religion. The plaintiff identified many incidents that, in her view, demonstrate bias against her as a Jewish…
You develop policies and train everyone — especially your managers — on how to handle situations like the example I have for you today. This lawsuit involves a plaintiff who filed a complaint — remember, these are just allegations — stating that she routinely interacted with a coworker with female…
Yesterday, on the same day that some of the Supreme Court noted that Congress hadn’t changed Title VII’s undue hardship standard for religious accommodations, the House and Senate reintroduced the Do No Harm Act, which the bill sponsors claim will “address the increasing use of religious freedom as a justification…
It’s 2023. When are employees going to learn that while the First Amendment does guarantee freedom of speech, there is no constitutional right to a job, and employers don’t have to tolerate employee hate speech? Our recent addition to the unemployment line is a semi-professional hockey player in Illinois. He…