The Sabbath at the Supreme Court

 By Zachary Groff - Posted at Reformation21:

Published June 30, 2023

Over the past several months, I’ve been tracking the progress of what I call “Uncle Gerry’s Case.” Gerald Groff[1] is an Evangelical Christian of the conservative Mennonite variety hailing from beautiful Lancaster County, Pennsylvania who has become a champion of religious liberty, the Christian Sabbath, and “reasonable accommodation” under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

While “Uncle Gerry’s” particular case is not quite over, significant progress has been made with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Groff vs. DeJoy, Postmaster General. The ramifications of this landmark decision may be far-reaching as lower courts receive careful (and unanimously endorsed) direction on how to assess “undue hardship” in the accommodation of religion in the workplace.

Since the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, employers are prohibited under Title VII from discriminating against employees and potential employees on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, and religion (i.e., protected classes). In this context, “religion” includes both faith and practice, religious beliefs and religious activities. Sabbatarianism (i.e., resting from “secular work” to observe religious worship at particular regular times) falls within the purview of a protected religious activity under Title VII.

However, there are certain limitations as to what an employee can demand of an employer under Title VII. The operative regulatory phrase adopted in 1968 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that sets the threshold is “reasonable accommodations to the religious needs of employees.” In 1972, Congress amended Title VII to make statutory what the EEOC had adopted as regulatory language in “reasonable accommodation.” The limit of what constitutes a “reasonable accommodation” is defined in the amended Title VII as that which would require “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.” Thus, an employee cannot legally demand that an employer make an accommodation that would yield “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”

Continue here.