High Court Hands Down 9-0 Verdict in Widely Anticipated Case

Title VII explicitly requires employers to accommodate the religious practices of employees unless doing so would cause an “undue hardship” to the business.

Streett’s position emphasized that the law’s plain language, rather than the Hardison precedent, should define undue hardship, aligning it with other federal statutes such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, where the threshold for hardship is measured in terms of significant difficulty or expense.

By using the Hardison “de minimis” test, he argued, courts had consistently allowed employers to sidestep their legal obligations.

Postal worker unions, including the American Postal Workers Union, had expressed concern about how religious accommodations could affect co-workers’ schedules, particularly when weekends are typically shared time off for family, community, and personal obligations.

In a brief submitted to the Supreme Court, the union noted that granting one employee a day off for religious observance might disrupt the work-life balance of others who rely on weekends for childcare, rest, or personal matters.

They argued that weekends serve as a collective day of rest and should not be considered a special privilege solely for those with religious obligations.

Nonetheless, Groff’s legal team stressed that the choice imposed on him and others like him was fundamentally unfair.

Minority religious groups—including representatives of Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism—filed amicus briefs explaining that the Hardison standard had disproportionately affected their communities.Continue reading…