EEOC Rules for Broader Religious Accommodations in Federal Cases

The EEOC trumpeted a pair of recent federal sector decisions finding government agencies discriminated against workers by failing to provide them with religious accommodations, as the Trump administration continues to push for more workplace faith-based protections.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Office of Federal Operations found the Department of Veterans Affairs and Federal Reserve Board of Governors violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by denying the accommodations.

The Aug. 4 decisions indicate how the EEOC under Republican Acting Chair Andrea Lucas will prioritize religious discrimination cases and how the commission views an employee-friendly test established in the US Supreme Court’s 2023 Groff v. Dejoy decision ruling.

EEOC in-house adjudicators only evaluate appeals of federal employee discrimination complaints against their agencies, but their decisions can be influential for how federal courts and private sector employers handle key employment law issues.

In 2015, for instance, the Democrats on the commission voted to approve a federal sector ruling that discrimination based on sexual orientation violates Title VII. That interpretation of the law was later largely affirmed in the Supreme Court’s landmark Bostock v. Clayton County decision.

The Trump administration has made religious protections a focus. Trump has issued executive orders on faith, and the Office of Personnel Management published a July 30 memo that states federal employees may pray at work, display religious icons, and attempt to persuade colleagues to adopt their religious beliefs.

In one federal sector decision announced Wednesday, the EEOC reversed the Department of Veterans Affairs denial of a Muslim physician’s requests to have Friday afternoons off in order to pray. The physician offered to work additional hours on Monday through Thursday to recover the time.

The EEOC found the “partially compressed schedule” the employee proposed was a reasonable alternative that did not significantly burden the agency or impose an undue hardship.

The OFO in the decision emphasized that the Groff test requires employers mount an affirmative defense and prove a religious accommodation request would cause “substantial” increased costs to their business, a burden it said the Department of Veterans Affairs did not meet in rejecting the proposed schedule.

In the Federal Reserve Board case, the EEOC reversed the agency’s final order that rejected a law enforcement officer’s religious exemption from a Covid-19 vaccine mandate. The agency did not persuasively show that an effective accommodation would have imposed undue hardship on its operations, the EEOC said.

“Religious liberty is a foundational American principle. These decisions remind federal employers that their employees deserve not only equal opportunity, but also equal respect for their religious beliefs and practices,” Lucas said in a statement.

Another Aug. 4 decision by the EEOC found the United States Postal Service discriminated against an employee at an Ohio processing and distribution center by denying her access to a vacant conference room to express breast milk.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Reserve Board, and USPS didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.