2. Foundations
• Religious observance, in relation to the work place, is protected by
the First Amendment, which ensures people’s freedom of
expression, to include religious beliefs.
• This Amendment is carried over to the individual states through
the 14th Amendment.
• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act also protects individuals from
adverse employment actions based on religious grounds.
• The text cites a hypothetical example of a case where an atheist
refused to hire someone who said they were recommended the job
by someone else in their church.
• The text states that he must prove he was qualified for the position
and there was no bonafide reason for not hiring him (such as the
3. bookstore in question specifically promoting atheism or non-
Christian religions).
• The example used in the text also mentions a variation where the
bookstore owner fired the new employee after learning of his
religious associations; results would be the same.
4. Religious Accommodation Issues
• Employees must first tell their employers what their religious beliefs
are and how their employment practices are compromising their
religious beliefs.
• The employer must then make reasonable accommodations for the
employee’s religious needs.
• ‘Reasonable’ means these accommodations do not cause the
employer undue hardship, compromise the rights of others, and
require more than minimal costs.
• If the employee is let go on the basis of failing to perform the job
due to religious practice interferences, discrimination
determinations will be based on reasonable accommodation
criteria.
5. • The text cites an example of a Jewish job applicant trying to apply
for a manager position requiring weekend work.
• The Jewish job applicant says that his faith prevented him from
working on Saturdays.
• The text states that if the Jewish job applicant tried to make a case
religious discrimination, based on the fact that the job advertise-
ment failed to mention that the position was for weekends only, he
would not succeed, since employers do not have to state all the
details in job advertisements.
• Adjusting the schedule of the current work staff to accommodate
the Jewish job applicant’s religious schedule would create undue
burden on the employer.
6. • The only way the Jewish job applicant could win is by proving that
the employer misrepresented the job, knowing that it would not fit
his religious schedule, based on their prior knowledge of his
Jewish faith.
7. Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications
• Religious organizations are permitted to practice employment
discrimination based on the religious principals of their
organizations.
• For example, a member of a Catholic Church organization can be
legally declined for employment by an employer helping Syrian
orphans if that employer is founded on Islamic religious beliefs,
giving preference to Muslims instead.
• Can a Catholic organization helping Liyan refugees in Italy turn
down a gay person who also wants to help these refugees?
• Following link describes such a scenario:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-church-fires-gay-man-met-20140731-story.html
8. • Associated article states:
“ ‘Court rulings clearly support the church’s ability to fire employees
who don’t abide by its teachings’, said Michael Budde, chairman of
DePaul University’s Department of Catholic Studies.”
9. Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2012
• This was initially proposed as an amendment to the Civil Rights
Act.
• It prohibits adverse employment decisions based on religious
practices requiring religious practitioners to wear certain types of
clothing or adapt grooming styles in observance of their faith.
• The text cites an example of a Rastafarian who must wear
dreadlocks in accordance to his faith. He worked for a fast food
firm, which requires short hair for sanitary and safety reasons.
• The text states that the Rastafarian could only win a religiously
based work discrimination case if the employer did not make a
reasonable accommodation offer involving the wearing of a plastic
cap, if the Rastafarian chose to accept it, and then got fired later.
10. Mixing Religious and Political Agendas
• The text cites a case of a devout Christian wearing an anti-
abortion button showing a disturbing image of a fetus. The
employee’s co-workers complained, and asked management to
get the employee to stop wearing it.
• The devout Christian employee was told by the employer that it
could only be worn openly in the employee’s office and it must
covered while wearing outside the office.
• The devout Christian employee refused to accept this
accommodation offer, was asked to leave, and did not return to
work for three days. After three days the employee was fired.
11. • The text stated that the subsequent religious discrimination case
put forth by the devout Christian employee was rejected on the
following points:
- The devout Christian employee’s choice to wear the anti-abortion
pin was not officially dictated by a recognized religious institution.
- The employer did make an effort to provide reasonable
accommodation.
- The message of the pin was political in nature, rather than
religious.
(See Wilson v. WEST Communications, 8th Cir., 1995)
12. The religious employee’s actions could also be seen as com-
promising the rights of others, where other employees have a right
to:
- A non-hostile work environment that is not disrupted by graphic
and disturbing imagery of dead fetuses.
- A non-hostile work environment that is not disrupted by angry
feminists who support abortion rights and feel that the religious
employee’s actions are provocative.
• The presenter has witnessed similar experiences in the workplace,
involving an atheist expressing anger, almost to the level of
harassment, in the face of other employees discussing religious
topics amongst themselves.
• In these cases, the atheist wanted the other parties to stop
discussing religion.
13. • In these situations, the atheist is potentially transgressing
workplace diversity principals, while infringing on the rights of
those who chose to adopt any religious belief system.
• These people were not trying to make the atheist “convert”, they
were not ridiculing the atheist viewpoint, they were not discussing
religious practices that could be seen as offensive toward a
reasonable person, nor were they promoting the breaking of laws.
• The atheist’s motives were really political in nature, which involved
suppressing people’s First Amendment rights to discuss religion.
• Other views may differ, especially if they consider atheism a form
of a religion.
• However, making arguments that people discussing religious
topics “offends” the atheist “religion” still violates other people’s
rights to have religious freedom of expression. Can a Christian
14. stop a Muslim from reading the Koran on their breaks? Unless his
Koran readings inspired discussions promoting civil rights
violations against Christians, the answer is no.
• Does the atheist want all people of all faiths to have no discussion
of religion? Creating and enforcing this work environment would
create an undue burden on an employer.
• These situations could also create slippery slopes. What if a
devout Hindu tried to push a policy where no one could eat beef in
the break because they found the desecration of cows, whom they
consider sacred, to be offensive? How would the atheist react?
• Both of these scenarios could be dismissed as undue burdens on
the employer. The employer has the right to fire both the atheist
and the Hindu. The employer would first have to accommodate the
Hindu by allowing them to eat their meal in their car so they would
not have to witness the consumption of beef.
15. Sources
Black, Lisa. “Gay church music director says wedding news led to dismissal.” Chicago Tribune,
July 31rst, 2014.
Moran, John Jude. Employment Law: New Challenges in the Business Environment. Pearson
Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Sixth Edition, 2014. Pages 337-340.
