The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a religious accommodation case involving a Postal Service worker who didn’t want to deliver packages on Sundays so he could observe the Sabbath. The decision will set new rules for how strict or lenient an employer must be when employees make schedule requests for religious reasons.
Facts of Groff v. DeJoy:
Gerald Groff got a job delivering packages for the United States Postal Service because he didn’t have to work on Sundays. Groff is devoutly religious and wanted to observe the Sabbath in accordance with his Christian faith. But the USPS signed a deal with Amazon to deliver packages on Sundays, and despite a couple of attempts to work things out, Groff’s bosses ultimately determined that allowing him to skip delivering packages on Sunday posed too much of a burden to the business.
Straight Arrow News Political Correspondent Ray Bogan interviewed Jeremy Dys, an attorney with the First Liberty Institute. The organization provides legal representation for Groff.
Bogan: “Why sue and take this all the way up to the Supreme Court? Why not try to find a job at Chick-fil-A, or some other 9-to-5, Monday to Friday position?”
Dys: “Well, because no employee should have to face the choice of choosing between his job and his faith. And that’s exactly what Gerald Groff had to do and exactly what the United States Postal Service put him to. They forced him to choose either to honor his commitments under the fourth commandment of the 10 commandments, or obeying his earthly masters at the United States Postal Service, and he couldn’t do both of those things. Instead, he should have been able just to follow the law.”
“Look at the very beginning of this situation, when Gerald took that job at the United States Postal Service, they weren’t delivering on Sundays at all. They were famous for not delivering on Sundays, as a matter of fact. It was only when Amazon bought a contract with them, that forced employees like Gerald to deliver packages on the Lord’s day. And that’s something that Gerald just simply couldn’t compromise with. And thankfully, the law doesn’t require him to do that.”
“Instead, we ought to restore this cooperative spirit that we’ve had in our country that encourages everybody from the boardroom to the mailroom to work together to accommodate the religious beliefs of employees and every company across the nation. But since courts have watered down that standard in this country, all of our employees right now are a little bit poorer, as Justice Thurgood Marshall once said. Because of a decision back in 1977, that undermined that promise of religious liberty in the workplace.”
Bogan: “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act generally prohibits an employer from discriminating against an individual because of their religion, and the employer is expected to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious observance. So what in your mind would be a reasonable accommodation?”
Dys: “Well, to do the very thing that the Postal Service said at the very beginning was ‘no problem, we’ll allow Gerald to be scheduled off on the Lord’s day.’ In fact, Gerald worked every day except for the Lord’s day, including Thanksgiving Day, so that other employees could spend the time with their families. He worked extra shifts on the days that he was working anyway. So he’d go do his route, come back, pick up somebody else’s route and start helping out over there so that those people who are covering for him would be able to have some time with their families.”
“That’s the type of cooperative spirit that we know and love in this country but that we’ve gotten a long ways away from. It’s time for the Supreme Court to restore the standard that Congress put in place in 1972, but that courts have so badly watered down. It gives a hecklers veto to pretty much anybody who is offended or somehow upset or counter to people like Gerald who just simply want to honor their faith commitments. That doesn’t need to be the case here.”
“We’re able to work together to find a reasonable solution, in the same way that we work together to accommodate disabled employees. The same standard on the Americans with Disabilities Act. We accommodate them in the workplace in the same way that we’re supposed to accommodate people of faith and yet the courts have so badly watered down that standard. That just simply is not the case anymore and every religious employee is the much of the poorer for it.”
Bogan: “So there’s an added factor to everything we’re talking about here because of Supreme Court precedent, and that’s whether making the accommodation can be done in a way that doesn’t cause undue hardship on the employer’s business. And the standard for that was spelled out in a case called “Hardison” and it states an employer suffers an undue hardship when the accommodation would require the employer to bear more than a de minimis cost, meaning the cost would be so minor as to merit disregard. So how can that accommodation be made in a way that doesn’t hurt the business?”
Dys: “Well it’s not that it would never cause a hardship, that’s not what the law says at all. The law says it has to be, it cannot be more than an undue hardship. So it’s assumed that there’s going to be some hardship. Yeah, some people are gonna have to work at times when they may not want to have to work or they’re gonna have to swap shifts when they may not have wanted to swap those shifts. And there may be some people that are jealous of Gerald having the Lord’s day off to honor his faith commitments. I don’t know exactly why they’d be jealous at that exact point. But that’s exactly what is accounted for under the Title VII Civil Rights Act that says that the employer has the responsibility to accommodate a religious employee’s beliefs, unless doing so he can prove will cause an undue hardship to the business as a whole; not just simply do employee morale, not to give a hecklers veto to those who don’t like people in the employment context, it’s that they have to show that it’s an undue hardship to the business as a whole. That’s a very workable standard.”
“That’s what we use under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other areas of federal law when it comes to places of employment. But more importantly, it brings forward that promise under the First Amendment that we’re going to give special protection, special regard to the religious liberty of every American citizen so that when they go from the workplace, to the public square, to home life and schools, they’re not going to abandon the religious liberty or somehow have to have to abandon a duty that they had before the divine in order to maintain their career.”
“The promise of the First Amendment is just that, that we will protect religious liberty of every American, including when they go into the workforce. And so right now, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to to restore that religious liberty in that workplace and restore the cooperative spirit that comes along with it. To say, look, I’m going to help you out so that you can help me out later on as well. That’s only part of the American experience and a good part of our American experience.”
Bogan: “So there’s one more section that the justices are going to address. And that’s whether an employer may demonstrate undue hardship on the conduct of the employers business under Title VII, merely by showing that the requested accommodation burdens the employees co-workers rather than the business itself. So there’s an added factor there. It’s not just the business, it’s also your colleagues.”
“So as the Supreme Court justices like to do, can I present you with a hypothetical and say, let’s say there’s a single mother, who needs to be home on Sundays to provide care to their child. And then you also have someone like Mr. Groff, who wants to go to church on Sundays, but one of them needs to work. How would your party suggest that situation be handled?”
Dys: “I think they simply work together to find a common solution that would address both of those very important issues. Look, Judge Hartman in the Third Circuit when this case was heard there, he wrote in dissent in that case, to say that the protections of religious liberty in the workplace are of paramount importance. And the way that the courts have watered down that standard for the past 45 years or so has been to undermine that promise of the First Amendment and religious liberty protections within the workplace.”
“It is provided, he said, a hecklers veto by employees and co-workers that would disagree with the religious beliefs of their co-worker. I cannot imagine a future in this country in which we would hand the keys over to the employer to the employers business, to co-workers to say, look, we just don’t like that person, regardless of his religious affiliation, or perhaps because of his religious affiliation. And that should be sufficient for him to merit eternal damnation to come in, to disobey his God in order to come in, to fulfill the obligations of the workplace.”
“That’s precisely why we have religious liberty extended to the workplace to make sure that what is here before us just simply proceed as the duty for an employer is protected because it’s the duty before God. Thankfully, we have a guy like Gerald Groff, who has suffered two years of just overwhelming opposition by the United States Postal Service, they’ve made an example out of him and that was their precise intent to take it to him to prove that they have the power to force you to violate your conscience, to obey your boss rather, than to have to obey your God.”
“That is something that is completely opposite to the promise of this country and should never be countenanced ever again. I hope the justices taking this opportunity to restore religious liberty to the workplace to put back into the standard what Congress intended, that an employer has to show that it’s an undue hardship to their business in order to escape their duty to accommodate their religious employees. That’s the only way forward in our country that so loves religious liberty.”
