8/13/2023 0 Comments Freedom of religion cases 2015![]() ![]() ![]() Other workers complained that Groff’s accommodations meant they had to take on more weekend shifts. As Amazon deliveries soared, swapping shifts with coworkers was no longer working out the local postmaster had to deliver mail himself given the lack of staff, and he argued that finding someone to cover the Sunday shift was time consuming and an added burden for him. But after the post office where Groff worked joined other nationwide carriers in delivering Amazon packages in 2015, the company eventually said his services were needed on Sunday, too. In the Groff case, the United States Postal Service (USPS) had initially allowed him to avoid Sunday shifts. “In ordinary usage, most people understand the word ‘undue hardship’ to mean something more than just a minimal cost or inconvenience,” says Joshua McDaniel, director of Harvard University’s Religious Freedom Clinic, who submitted an amicus brief on behalf of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in support of Groff’s position. Hardison that the “undue hardship” term means that employers only need to prove they face more than a “de minimis” (very minimal) cost to deny a religious accommodation.Įxperts expect this Supreme Court will affirm that in order to deny religious accommodation requests, employers need to abide by a higher standard-one more reflective of the “undue hardship” enshrined in federal law. The Supreme Court undercut this provision in 1997 when it ruled in Trans World Airlines v. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act requires employers to show that an employee’s request for religious accommodations would create an “undue hardship” in order to deny it. It could even affect employees who refuse vaccines or don’t want to have contact with patients who need abortion care. It could affect religious employees’ ability to attend scheduled prayer services such as Jummah or Sunday church. The case’s far reaching implications in workplaces could affect the ability for Muslim women to wear a hijab, Jews to wear a yarmulke, or Rastafarians to wear their hair in dreadlocks. “The stakes are much bigger than Sabbath observance,” says Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin and expert on religious liberty. ![]()
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