August 2023 | Volume 15, Issue 1

Read the full article from Politico.

According to the article, the United States Supreme Court recently used the case of a Christian mail carrier who did not want to work Sundays to solidify protections for workers who ask for religious accommodations.

In a unanimous decision, the justices made clear that workers who ask for accommodations, such as taking the Sabbath off, should get them unless their employers show that doing so would result in “substantial increased costs” to the business.

The court clarified that businesses must cite more than minor costs — so-called de minimis costs — to reject requests for religious accommodations at work. Unlike most cases before the court, both sides in the case had agreed businesses needed to show more.

The case before the court involved a mail carrier in rural Pennsylvania. The man was told that he would need to start delivering Amazon packages on Sundays as part of his job. He declined, saying his Sundays are for church and family. U.S. Postal Service officials initially tried to get substitutes for the man’s shifts, but they couldn’t always accommodate him. When he did not show, that meant more work for others. Ultimately, the man quit and sued for religious discrimination.

The case is the latest religious confrontation the high court has been asked to referee. In recent years, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority has been particularly sensitive to the concerns of religious plaintiffs. Last year, the court split along ideological lines in ruling for a public high school football coach who wanted to pray on the field after games.

Other recent religious cases have drawn wide agreement among the justices, such as upholding a cross-shaped monument on public grounds and ruling that Boston had violated the free speech rights of a conservative activist when it refused his request to fly a Christian flag on a City Hall flagpole.

In the latest case, a federal law — Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — requires employers to accommodate employees’ religious practices unless doing so would be an “undue hardship” for the business. But a 1977 Supreme Court case, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, says in part that employers can deny religious accommodations to employees when they impose “more than a de minimis cost” on the business.

During arguments in the case in April the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who was representing the Post Office, told the justices that the Hardison case as a whole actually requires an employer who wants to deny an accommodation to show more.

But Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion for the court that while some lower courts have understood Hardison the way the Biden administration suggested, other courts incorrectly latched on to the “de minimis” language “as the governing standard.”

“In this case, both parties agree that the ‘de minimis’ test is not right, but they differ slightly in the alternative language they prefer. ... We think it is enough to say that an employer must show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business,” Alito wrote.

The Biden administration has said that requests for religious accommodation come up most often when employees seek schedule changes like the Sabbath off or midday prayer breaks or exemptions from a company’s dress code or grooming policies. They also come up when an employee wants to display a religious symbol in the workplace.

As for the particular dispute in front of them, the justices sent the case back to a lower court for another look considering their decision. The case involves Gerald Groff, a former employee of the U.S. Postal Service in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country. For years, Groff was a fill-in mail carrier who worked on days when other mail carriers were off.

But when an Amazon.com contract with the Postal Service required carriers to start delivering packages on Sundays, Groff balked. Initially, to avoid the shifts, Groff transferred to a more rural post office not yet doing Sunday deliveries, but eventually that post office was required to do them, too.

Whenever Groff was scheduled on a Sunday, another carrier had to work or his spot went unfilled. Officials said Groff’s absences created a tense environment and contributed to morale problems. It also meant other carriers had to deliver more Sunday mail than they otherwise would.

Groff resigned in 2019 rather than wait to be fired. He sued the Postal Service for failing to accommodate his religious practice. Lower courts ruled against him previously. As a result of the court’s ruling, his case will get another look.

Groff said in a statement after the ruling that he was grateful the court heard his case. “I hope this decision allows others to be able to maintain their convictions without living in fear of losing their jobs because of what they believe,” he said.

The case is Groff v. DeJoy, 22-174.

Discussion Questions

  1. Explain the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in this case.
    As the article indicates, in Groff v. DeJoy, the United States Supreme Court held in a unanimous decision that workers who asked for religious accommodations, such as taking Sunday off, should receive them unless their employers demonstrate that making such accommodation would result in “substantial increased costs” to the business,

    The Court held that businesses must cite more than de minimis (minor) costs to reject requests for religious accommodations at work. This decision is based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious practice(s) of an employee unless doing so would cause an “undue hardship” for the employer.
  2. What is a “religious accommodation?"
    A reasonable religious accommodation is any adjustment to the work environment that will allow an employee to practice their religious beliefs. This applies not only to schedule changes or leave for religious observances (such as having Sundays off), but also to such things as dress or grooming practices that an employee has for religious reasons.
  3. Note that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy was unanimous. Are you surprised that the decision was unanimous? Why or why not?This is an opinion question, so student responses may vary.
    In your author’s opinion, for at least two reasons, it is surprising that the Court’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy was unanimous.

    First, the Court is demonstrably divided on ideological grounds, with six justices (Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Thomas) usually entrenched in the conservative realm, and three justices (Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor) typically grounded in progressive ideology.

    Second, reasonable minds might differ regarding what constitutes a reasonable accommodation and what constitutes an undue hardship in the accommodation. In your author’s opinion, this is demonstrated by the fact that lower courts ruled against the plaintiff Groff.

    Also, as referenced in response to Article 2, Discussion Question 3 above, how can a fact-finder truly determine whether a decision (in this case, wanting Sundays off from work) is based on religious grounds as opposed to some other reason (for example, to watch NFL football games)? Is the court to take the defendant’s word for it?