Supreme Court Miniseries: Religious Accommodation at Work
Employment Law Now VII-133 - Hot Summer Employment Law Developments
#WorkforceWednesday: SCOTUS Introduces Heightened Standard for Religious Accommodation, Rules Against Affirmative Action, Protects “Expressive” Services - Employment Law This Week®
Few issues are more sensitive for employers than accommodating employees’ religious practices and observances. In recent years, Muslim employees and their employers have struggled with how to handle the religious requirement...more
Vaccine Exemption Policy Requiring Citation to Official Doctrine Violates First Amendment Madison Houghton and Nathan A. Adams IV In Does 1-11 v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Colorado, 100 F. 4th 1251 (10th Cir. 2024), former...more
Complete answers may be several years in the making. A year ago this month, in Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court of the United States held that an employer who rejects a request for a religious accommodation “must show that...more
May 2024 NJ Supreme Court holds that non-disparagement provisions cannot prohibit disclosure of details relating to claims of discrimination, retaliation, or harassment - The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously held that...more
Applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy, which clarified the standard for undue hardship in religious accommodation cases under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a federal district court in Indiana...more
Imagine you manage a busy restaurant, and you are working on the schedule for next week. Saturday is your busiest day, and you need all hands on deck, so you need to schedule everyone for that day. Just when you have the...more
Last fall, I reported on a proposed Enforcement Guidance issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on workplace harassment. I gave the proposed guidance a good review overall, although I had some disagreements...more
The Utah Antidiscrimination Act has been amended to expand religious accommodation requirements for employers under Utah law. The Utah Legislature passed House Bill 396 (H.B. 396), and Governor Spencer Cox signed the bill on...more
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which clarified that Title VII’s protections against discrimination “based on … sex” included sexual orientation and gender identity, an increasing area of...more
Chutzpah is a Yiddish word derived from the Aramaic ḥuṣpāh. It means impudence, gall, and an audacious disregard for rules. In the world of employment law, it can aptly describe employees who try to get what they want...more
As flu and other respiratory virus rates peak across the U.S., hospitals and other health care providers are responding by taking measures such as limiting patient visitors. For years, one element of this response has...more
Similar to the prior five years, 2023 brought unprecedented changes in labor and employment laws that have already gone into effect or are now in effect for 2024 in Colorado, across the country in other states, by National...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers with 15 or more employees from discriminating against employees and applicants on the basis of religion (as well as race, color, sex, and national origin), and it...more
Attacks on Non-Disclosure, Confidentiality, and Non-Compete Agreements in 2023 - On several fronts in 2023, we saw federal agencies and entities attacking the scope and enforceability of certain employment agreements,...more
The teacher had a religious objection. The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday found in favor of a West Point public school teacher whose employment was terminated because he would not address a transgender student by the...more
In last term’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly increased employers’ obligation to consider religious exemption requests under Title VII. Rather than the previous de minimus burden standard,...more
Question: Do employers need to provide a space for employees to worship and/or pray in the office? The short answer is: Maybe. You must reasonably accommodate employees’ sincerely held religious, ethical, or moral...more
The retail industry is a shift-based industry, dependent on workers signing up for weekday and weekend shifts, for holidays, and for times when few average workers would dream of being awake and at work. What if an employee...more
In September 2023, federal trial courts in Wisconsin and Kentucky issued decisions dismissing plaintiffs’ claims related to employers’ COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements....more
On September 25 a federal court in New York dismissed a lawsuit accusing an employer of failing to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs as a member of the “Temple of the Healing Spirits” located in “Deland city,...more
Question: Do employers need to provide a space for employees to worship and/or pray in the office? Answer: The short answer is: Maybe. Employers must reasonably accommodate employees’ sincerely held religious, ethical,...more
Public school districts across the country face an October 1 deadline to certify they do not prevent constitutionally protected prayer — or else they could lose federal funding. The certification is an annual exercise,...more
Hair. In some religions it is considered a sacred gift from God that should not be cut. In other religions, it must be styled, covered, or cut in particular ways. These religious practices may result in employees’ requesting...more
For retail establishments, developments involving religious accommodation and the new Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) make scheduling employees more challenging. Religious Accommodation- The U.S. Supreme Court...more
Consider this: an employee refuses to accept Sunday shifts because, under his religion, that day is devoted to worship and rest. Is his employer legally required to accommodate him? For decades, the answer was easy....more