Over the last few years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) has seen an uptick in religious-based discrimination charges under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For example, in Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2021, American workers filed 2,111 charges alleging religious discrimination, but in FY 2022 the EEOC recorded a significantly increased number of 13,814 religion-based charges. See Enforcement and Litigation Statistics, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, https://www.eeoc.gov/data/enforcement-and-litigation-statistics-0. The number of charges decreased in FY 2023 but remained relatively high with the EEOC recording 4,341 religion-based charges. The EEOC recently published information about two enforcement actions which were decided only a few weeks apart, where employers were found liable for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for failing to reasonably accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs. Both cases serve as a wake-up call for employers to properly evaluate requests for religious accommodations.
Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer to “fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to…such individual’s…religion.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2. Title VII provides that the term “religion” includes “all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief.” 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e(j). Importantly, Title VII requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs or practices of employees or applicants unless doing so would impose an undue hardship upon the employer. According to the EEOC, “a reasonable religious accommodation is any adjustment to the work environment that will allow the employee to practice his religion. Flexible scheduling, voluntary substitutions or swaps, job reassignments, and lateral transfers are [some] examples of accommodating an employee’s religious beliefs.” What Should You Know about the EEOC and Religious Discrimination, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-eeoc-and-religious-discrimination. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (2023), clarified the standard employers must meet to prove that a religious accommodation causes an undue hardship. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court emphasized that to show an undue hardship, employers must demonstrate “ that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.” Id.
To trigger an employer’s duty to accommodate an employee or applicant, the belief must be “religious” in nature, and it must be “sincerely held”. However, the issue that several employers often encounter when they receive accommodation requests is trying to determine the legitimacy of the asserted religious belief. The EEOC has provided guidance on the scope of sincerely held religious beliefs. “Religious beliefs” includes both theistic beliefs (i.e. those that include a belief in God) as well as non-theistic moral or ethical beliefs about right and wrong that are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views. Importantly, courts will “not attempt to assess a belief’s ‘truth’ or ‘validity.’ E.E.O.C. v. Ilona of Hungary, Inc., 108 F.3d 1569, 1575 (7th Cir. 1997). However, the scope of a religious belief is not boundless. In fact, Title VII does not require accommodation of an employee’s mere “personal preferences.” As such, employees are “not permitted to redefine a purely personal preference or aversion as a religious belief.” Sidelinger v. Harbor Creek Sch. Dist., 2006 WL 3455073, at 11 (W.D. Pa. Nov. 29, 2006).
EEOC guidance states that “if the employer has a bona fide doubt about the basis for the accommodation request, it is entitled to make a limited inquiry into the facts and circumstances of the employee’s claim that the belief…is…sincerely held and gives rise to the need for the accommodation.” Questions and Answers: Religious Discrimination in the Workplace, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/questions-and-answers-religious-discrimination-workplace. There are several factors that may be considered to determine whether an individual holds a sincerely held belief, such as, “whether the employee has behaved in a manner markedly inconsistent with the professed belief [and] whether the accommodation sought is a particularly desirable benefit that is likely to be sought for secular reasons.” Id.
One of the two enforcement actions that the EEOC recently publicized is EEOC v. Hank’s Furniture, Inc. Hank’s Furniture, Inc (“HFI”), a nationwide furniture dealer, had a claim brought by one of its employees who refused to receive a COVID-19 vaccine due to her religious belief. When the employee informed the company about her inability to take the vaccine, instead of discussing the feasibility of an accommodation, HFI denied her request and disputed the validity of her sincerely held religious belief. The EEOC brought an enforcement action against HFI for its failure to accommodate the employee’s religious accommodation request, which was ultimately settled with a three-year consent decree and payment by HFI of $110,000. The consent decree also required HFI to adopt and implement a written policy to assure its employees that all religious accommodation requests would be interpreted and resolved based on EEOC guidance, and that HFI would offer the requisite training to its supervisory staff.
In another case, EEOC v. Houchens Food Group d/b/a Hometown IGA, an applicant claimed that Houchens Food Group failed to hire him due to its denial of a religious accommodation. Specifically, the applicant claimed that he needed a religious accommodation to the company’s personal appearance policy to wear his dreadlocks because his religious beliefs prevented him from cutting his hair, and claimed that the company denied him employment on that basis. Importantly, the EEOC recognizes that an employer’s responsibility to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practice extends to dress or grooming practices that an employee has for religious reasons. According to the EEOC, these [religious beliefs] might include, for example, wearing … certain hairstyles or facial hair (such as Rastafarian dreadlocks.) Religious Discrimination- Religious Accommodation/Dress and Grooming Practices, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, https://www.eeoc.gov/religious-discrimination#:~:text=Religious%20Accommodation%2FDress%20%26%20Grooming%20Policies,employee’s%20religious%20beliefs%20or%20practices. The resolution of the EEOC’s enforcement action included a consent decree where the company was ordered to pay $40,000 to the applicant and was required to revise its EEO policies and to provide training to its employees regarding its duty to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs.
Takeaways:
If an employer has a bona fide doubt about the employee’s claim, it may make a limited inquiry into the facts and circumstances of the employee’s claim that the belief is sincerely held and that gives rise to the need for accommodation.
Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate in employment based on an individual’s religious beliefs, which includes making reasonable accommodations of sincerely held religious beliefs.
A religious belief includes both theistic beliefs and non-theistic moral or ethical beliefs about right and wrong that are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.
