Supreme Court Issues Decision In Religious Freedom Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously decided in favor of a postal worker from Pennsylvania in a significant religious liberty case involving the appropriateness of employers’ accommodation of religious preferences in the workplace.

Christian mailman Gerald Groff of Pennsylvania requested the court rule on whether the U.S. Postal Service may make him deliver parcels from Amazon on Sundays, which he observes as the Sabbath. His lawyer, Aaron Streett, argued in April that the court needed to review a decision from 50 years ago that set a standard for figuring out when companies have to make allowances for their workers’ religious practices.

In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court rejected a ruling from 1977 that mandated that businesses must “reasonably accommodate” an employee’s religious practices as long as doing so does not put an “undue hardship” on the company.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires employers to accommodate employees’ religious practices unless doing so would be an “undue hardship” for the business. A 1977 Supreme Court case, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, said employers could deny religious accommodations to employees when they impose “more than a de minimis cost” on the business.

Streett said the court should get rid of the “de minimus” test because lower courts have used it wrongly to deny religious accommodations. Instead, he said, the court should use the plain language of Title VII, which would define “undue burden” the same way it is in other federal laws, like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

F M

Related Posts

After saving for years, I finally bought my own luxury apartment—only for my mom to demand that I sell it to fund my half-sister’s college.

At twenty-eight, after years of saving, skipping vacations, working late nights, and taking every freelance project I could find, I finally purchased a small but stunning luxury apartment in Seattle….

Read more

A Flight I’ll Never Forget: Learning to Speak Up When It Matters Most

At seven months pregnant, all I wanted was a calm trip home—a few quiet hours to rest before seeing my husband again. Instead, just minutes after settling into my seat,…

Read more

My Family Said My Wedding Was Too Far but Traveled for My Sister Until Weeks Later My Father Needed Something

The Empty Seats My name is Nancy Austin. I am thirty-five years old, and I have spent most of my adult life doing the math. Not because I am especially…

Read more

My Arrogant New Neighbors Made My Pristine Lawn Their Parking Lot – I May Be Old, but My Revenge Was Ruthless

When new neighbors started parking their truck on Edna’s well-kept lawn, they assumed the elderly widow would simply accept the intrusion. But Edna, fiercely protective of the home she and…

Read more

A Widowed Father Rushed to the Hospital After an Urgent Call Said His 8-Year-Old Daughter Was in Critical

At 6:12 on a gray February morning, Adrian Whitaker was already sitting in his car outside his office building in Tacoma, Washington. The engine hummed quietly beneath him while a…

Read more

Now $19,000—recently reduced by $6K. Escape to total privacy: no neighbors, no noise, peace and open space

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that does not come from physical effort, but from the constant hum of modern life—a quiet, persistent pressure that builds over time. It…

Read more

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *