Granting a religious accommodation request and then placing the employee on indefinite unpaid leave can itself be retaliation. A federal district court in Illinois recently refused to dismiss a Title VII religious discrimination and retaliation lawsuit built on exactly that theory.
Who would have guessed that the most interesting religious discrimination issue of the week would show up on a Major League Baseball field?
A teacher gets twice the students, a warning for observing a religious holiday, and a misconduct investigation after venting on a union Facebook page. She loses every claim.
Sometimes the facts supporting a religious accommodation denial are so strong that skipping the accommodation process doesn’t sink you. This healthcare employer found that out — and the 9th Circuit’s reasoning tells you exactly why.
A school district police officer posted a prayer on Facebook criticizing his supervisors. He was fired. His lawsuit raised constitutional claims, a retaliation claim, and a religious discrimination claim. The Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal on all of them, and the reasons why are a useful lesson for any employer.
When does a religious exemption request stop being religious? A federal appeals court just answered that question in a way that eight of its own judges found alarming.
An engineer got fired for making offensive comments about his non-Christian co-workers, then sued for religious discrimination. There was just one problem: he wouldn’t show anyone the EEOC charge he filed.
A weekend schedule change. A Sunday church conflict. And apparently no one at the company thought to have a conversation about it. Continue reading
Some employers try. The Fourth Circuit just explained why that trick doesn’t work for these federal discrimination claims. Continue reading
COVID vaccination mandates may be behind us, but the lawsuits they generated are still shaping how courts analyze religious accommodation under Title VII. This Third Circuit decision is a reminder that an accommodation can still be challenged when it allegedly creates a new burden. Continue reading
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