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:
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 undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”
But what does that mean? Continue reading
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, ethical or moral beliefs.”
While the law may not protect folks who pray to flying spaghetti monsters, Title VII can apply to others who are not members of conventional religious groups. As the EEOC notes, “just because an individual’s religious practices may deviate from commonly-followed tenets of the religion, the employer should not automatically assume that his or her religious observance is not sincere.” Continue reading
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. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
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.
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 person, either in the form of overtly anti-Semitic comments or what she refers to as microaggressions. Among them, the plaintiff claimed that her supervisor told her that she “does not want an old Jewish woman running a multicultural department.”
But here’s the thing.
You develop policies and train everyone — especially your managers — on how to handle situations like the example I have for you today.
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 to undermine civil rights protections.” Continue reading
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?
Continue reading
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