Must you accommodation an employee's religion not to attend DEI training? Believe it or not, it might depend on the training.

"Your respectful workplace training is against my religion; count me out."

That's what one employee told his employer when it tried to compel him to attend its mandatory training about treating all with courtesy and respect.

When the employee learned that one module of the training would include LGBTQI+ issues, he explained to his employer, "This subject matter contradicts my sincerely held religious beliefs." He advised that he would excuse himself during that portion of the training.

A lesson in how NOT to testify

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik: Ms. Magill at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?

UPenn President Liz Magill: If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment. Yes.

Stefanik: I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?

Magill: If it is directed, and severe, pervasive, it is harassment.

Stefanik: So the answer is yes.

Magill: It is a context dependent decision, Congresswoman.

Stefanik: It's a context dependent decision. That's your testimony today, calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context, that is not bullying or harassment. This is the easiest question to answer. Yes, Ms. Magill. So is your testimony that you will not answer yes? Yes or no?

Magill: If the speech becomes conduct. It can be harassment, yes.

Stefanik: Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide. The speech is not harassment. This is unacceptable. Ms. Magill, I'm gonna give you one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's Code of Conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

Magill: It can be harassment.

Stefanik: The answer is yes.

This case perfectly illustrates religious accommodations post-Groff

Elimelech Shmi Hebrew is a devout follower of the Hebrew Nation, a religion that requires its followers to keep their hair and beard long — a vow he has kept for over two decades.

The Department of Criminal Justice has a grooming policy that prohibits male officers without medical skin conditions from having beards and in any case from having long hair.

Hebrew applies for a job as a corrections officer with DCJ. What wins out — Hebrew's religion or DCJ's grooming policy?

Employers need to be more vigilant than ever with anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim bias

Not all Jews are Zionists colonizers, and not all Muslims are Hamas terrorists. In fact, most aren't. Moreover, you can oppose the policies or actions of the Israeli government without being antisemitic and oppose Hamas without being anti-Muslim.

Yet, the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict front and center into our lives, and as a result also into our workplaces. You can't stop employees from talking about current events, especially when those events are so horrific and so impactful on so many of us. Your employees will be talking about what's happening in Israel and Gaza. The key for employers is to make sure those discussions remain calm and respectful.

Employees shouldn’t have to choose between their religion and their job

Is there any legitimate reason a concierge must be clean shaven as a condition of employment? That question is at the center of a new lawsuit the EEOC filed against Blackwell Security Services.

The EEOC alleges that a Blackwell supervisor told a Muslim hiree that it was company policy that all employees be clean shaven. When the employee requested an exemption from the policy to accommodate his religious practice, Blackwell told him to shave his beard or be terminated. To avoid losing his job, the employee complied and shaved his beard. The EEOC charge and its lawsuit followed.

Work and religion aren’t a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup

Everyone's relationship with God — whether you call that deity God, Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, something else, or nothing at all — is personal. I have no opinion on your spiritual relationship, as should you have none on mine. Thus, I get mad whenever someone tries to shove their religious beliefs down my throat. Not only do I not care, but I can guarantee that you will not change my mind. Proselytism is one small step removed from fanaticism, and rarely, if ever, has anything good come from religious fanaticism.

I share the above as prologue to today's discussion, which focuses on a Title VII lawsuit the EEOC recently settled with Aurora Pro Services, a North Carolina residential home service and repair company, alleged to have required employees to participate in religious prayer sessions as a condition of employment. 

Can an employer require that employees be of a specific faith? Believe it or not, it depends.

"Mature orthodox Christian faith as defined by the Apostles' Creed."

That is one of the qualifications listed in a job posting for a filmmaker position. The employer — the International Justice Mission — is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, the mission of which is to combat human trafficking and slavery, violence against women and children, and police abuse of power worldwide.

Can IJM make a certain religious faith a job qualification or otherwise ask about religion as part of the hiring process?

It depends on whether "religion" is a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) for that employer.

An employee may not have a right to receive a reasonable accommodation, but they at least have a right to conversation about it

The EEOC has sued Mercy Health St. Mary's for religious discrimination, claiming that it violated Title VII by rescinding a job offer to an applicant who, for religious reasons, refused to obtain a flu vaccine pursuant to hospital policy.

According to the EEOC's lawsuit, the hospital arbitrarily denied the applicant's request for an accommodation from its vaccination policy and rescinded the job offer, without specifying why or how the request for an exemption accommodation was deficient. Instead, the EEOC alleges, it should have offered an opportunity to supplement the accommodation request to address any perceived deficiencies.

7th Circuit decides the issue of religious rights vs. trans rights … and trans rights won

I really wanted to move on this week from writing about transgender rights. But then the 7th Circuit had to go and decide that a student's right to be called by his or her preferred gender trumps a teacher's religious accommodation request not to do so.

The case is Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corp. John Kluge worked as a music teacher at the Brownsburg Community School Corp. In 2017, the school adopted a new policy that required teachers to use students' chosen names and pronouns. Kluge refused to abide, asserting that it violated his Christian beliefs. The school initially granted an accommodation that permitted Kluge to refer to all students by their last names. It withdrew the accommodation, however, after both trans and cisgender students became angered after deciphering Kluge's surname use. Kluge resigned and sued for religious discrimination and retaliation under Title VII.

6th Circuit confirms that private employers can do private employer things

Four employees of the J.M. Smucker Company sought religious exemptions from the company's Covid vaccine mandate. When the company refused, they sued, claiming that the mandate infringed on their First Amendment religious liberties.

The 6th Circuit easily concluded that the 1st Amendment does not apply to J.M. Smucker or limits its power to regulate its workplace as it is a private company, not a federal, state, or local government.

Your religion isn’t a license to discriminate (but we may need to accommodate you anyway)

Pronouns confuse me. It's not that I want to misgender anyone. In fact, quite to the contrary, I try really hard to get people's pronouns correct when addressing them or speaking about them. To me, it's a simple matter of common decency. My efforts to get them correct, however, doesn't mean that they still don't confuse me. When I grew up, I learned that "they" refers to a group of people. Thus, when someone refers to someone else as "they," my brains says, "more than one." It's just difficult, but I still try to get it right.

Which brings me to the story of Vivian Geraghty, a middle school teacher. She is suing her former employer after being told either to use the preferred pronouns of her students or resign. She chose the latter, and claims in her lawsuit that the school's mandate discriminated against her Christian beliefs, which the school should have accommodated. Geraghty says the school instead should have explored potential accommodations such as moving her to another classroom or addressing students by their last names

Is God anti-union?

Thomas Ross, a security officer employed by Allied Universal in San Francisco, has filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC against Service Employees International Union officials and his employer for forcing him to join and financially support the union after he told both that his religious beliefs forbid union support.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, an employee can be forced to join a labor union and pay union dues whether or not he or she supports that union or any union. If, however, the employee happens to work in one of the 27 states with right to work laws, he or she cannot be forced to join or pay. California is not one of those states. Thus, Ross claims that his employer and the SEIU should have reasonably accommodated his sincerely held religious belief that union membership violates his Christian beliefs.

Forced religion and work do not mix

I believe that everyone's relationship with God (whether you call that deity God, Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, something else, or nothing at all) is personal. I have no opinion on your spiritual relationship, as should you have none on mine. Thus, I get mad whenever someone tries to shove their religious beliefs down my throat. Not only do I not care, but I can guarantee that you will not change my mind. Proselytism is one small step removed from fanaticism, and rarely, if ever, has anything good come from religious fanaticism.

I share the above as prologue to today's discussion, which focuses on a Title VII lawsuit the EEOC recently filed against Aurora Pro Services, a North Carolina residential home service and repair company, alleged to have required employees to participate in religious prayer sessions as a condition of employment.

LGBTQ+ rights vs. religious liberty

"It's an abomination to God. Rainbow is not meant to be displayed as a sign for sexual gender."

That's what Daniel Snyder wrote on the electronic bulletin board of his employer, Arconic. According to the Des Moines Register and Snyder's recently filed lawsuit, it's also what got him fired.

Accountability always starts at the top

How do you respond to an employee who states that the Covid-19 vaccine is a plot by "the Jews" to exterminate people? Does your answer change if the employee in question is the company's founder? 

The correct answers: You fire him, and no, it doesn't matter who he is.

The scenario recently played out at Entrata, a Utah technology company. David Bateman, Entrata's founder, sent an email to multiple parties, including various Utah tech leaders. Bateman's email started with the subject line, "Genocide." It went downhill from there. 

Coronavirus Update 11-11-2021: Religious groups tell 5th Circuit that the OSHA vaccine mandate is a “sin against God"

In a filing made with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the petition seeking to strike down OSHA's "vaccine or test" emergency temporary standard, the American Family Association and Word of God Fellowship (which does business as Daystar Television Network) told the court that imposing the mandate on religious employees would be a "sin against God." (For the record, the AFA also believes that climate change is a hoax because only God can control the climate and stands firm against legal protection for LGBT rights. But I digress.)

Coronavirus Update 11-10-2021: Federal judge grants injunction victory to United on its vaccine mandates, but signals that this war is far from over

A U.S. federal district court judge ruled that an employer can impose on its employees a Covid-19 vaccine mandate that provides unpaid leave as the only reasonable accommodation for medical or religious reasons.

The case, Sambrano v. United Airlines, was seen as a test case for the viability of unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation to vaccine mandates. The order denied the plaintiffs their requested preliminary injunction. Yet, it's not that aspect of the case that's the most noteworthy. Instead, it's the critical words that the judge saved for United's apparent cavalier and callous attitude against religious accommodations as a whole to which employers should pay the most attention.

Coronavirus Update 10-28-2021: EEOC publishes its own internal Religious Accommodation Request form

"Jon, we have so many employees asking us for religious accommodations from our workplace Covid rules, including our vaccine mandate. Do you have a form we can use to document the request?" 

I certainly do. But it's not mine. It's the EEOC's. The Agency just published the internal form it uses for its own employees' religious accommodation requests.

Coronavirus Update 8-19-2021: The (Un)Healthy American, along with other more reputable organizations, help Americans dodge vaccine mandates

Meet Peggy Hall. She runs a website called The Healthy American. 

What is The Healthy American? For starters, it's a website that NewsGuard ranks 22.5/100 (a failing grade no matter how you slice it), for, among other sins and errors, publishing false and irresponsible misinformation about the Covid vaccine. 

Coronavirus Update 8–10–2021: Vaccines and religions accommodation requests

"I need an accommodation for your mandatory vaccination policy. The vaccine is against my religion."

As more employers roll out vaccine mandates, more will be faced with this exact scenario.

Title VII requires an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee's sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, or observances, as long as the accommodation does not impose an undue hardship. 

Two, and only two, religions, however, actually support people not getting vaccinated as a tenet of the religion — Christian Scientists and the Dutch Reformed Church. There are an estimated 106,000 Christian Scientists in the United States, and 194,000 members of the Reformed Church. That's a tidy total of 300,000 potential religious objectors based on their religion's actual teachings, period (or only 0.25% of all employees). But that minuscule number does not end the inquiry.