Authored By: Dennis J. Merley Attorney View Biography

Requests to accommodate employee religious practices continue to challenge employers, and religious discrimination cases are piling up at government fair employment agencies. In an effort to combine all of the judicial decisions and agency pronouncements on these matters into a single useful source, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has recently issued a new compliance manual. While this manual does not break much new ground in EEOC’s take on the law, it is an excellent compendium and should greatly assist employers in addressing these difficult cases.

The new compliance manual is divided into five major areas: coverage, disparate treatment, harassment, reasonable accommodation, and related forms of discrimination. It addresses such critical issues as:

What religion is and how to determine the sincerity of the employee’s belief. Religious dress and grooming issues. Use of employer time and facilities for prayer. Analyzing the “undue hardship” defense.

Among the more interesting insights offered in the new manual is the recognition that “religion” is more than the traditionally recognized religions (e.g. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism).

New, uncommon, and even non-theistic "moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong” may qualify, providing that they are sincerely held with the “strength of traditional religious views."

The EEOC also issued two summary documents entitled “Questions and Answers: Religious Discrimination in the Workplace” and “Best Practices for Eradicating Religious Discrimination in the Workplace.” The latter document provides practical guidance on avoiding possible religious discrimination claims, including the following:

• Inform employees that reasonable efforts will be made to accommodate employees' religious practices.
• Develop an internal procedure for identifying and processing religious accommodation requests.
• Avoid assumptions or stereotypes about what constitutes a religious belief or what accommodation is appropriate.
• Consider alternatives if the requested accommodation is not feasible or constitutes an undue hardship.
• Consider flexible leave and schedule policies and procedures that allow employees to meet their religious and personal needs without requesting a religious accommodation, e.g. granting a defined number of “floating holiday days”.

Religious discrimination and accommodation issues likely will generate a fair amount of litigation, and such cases often catch the eyes of the media. The most recent example is Gold ‘n Plump’s settlement of a case involving Muslim employees seeking prayer time and permission not to handle pork products. Reviewing EEOC’s newest resource on religious discrimination may be a good start on preventing such cases in your organization. The compliance manual and best practices document can be accessed at http://eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html and http://eeoc.gov/policy/docs/best_practices_religion.html respectively.

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