Dive Brief:
- A North Carolina home service and repair company violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it failed to accommodate and fired two employees for refusing to attend daily prayer meetings because of their religious beliefs, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged in a lawsuit (EEOC v. Aurora Renovations and Developments, LLC d/b/a Aurora Pro Services, No. 22-490 (M.D.N.C. June 27, 2022)).
- Between June 2020 and January 2021, when a construction manager and a customer service representative worked for the company, the owner of Aurora Pro held mandatory daily prayer meetings, according to the lawsuit. During the meetings, which ended with a brief discussion about business matters, employees stood in a circle, while the owner and others read Bible scripture and led employees in Christian prayer, including prayers for poorly performing employees who were identified by name, the lawsuit said. Although the construction manager, who is atheist, initially attended, he later asked the owner if he could be excused from the religious part because it conflicted with his beliefs, the lawsuit alleged. The owner allegedly denied his requests, cut his pay in half and fired him after he stopped attending. The owner also allegedly fired the customer service representative, who is agnostic, after she refused to attend because of her religious beliefs.
- The EEOC sued Aurora Pro for creating a religiously hostile workplace, failing to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs and firing them because they refused to conform to its religious practices. “Employers who sponsor prayer meetings in the workplace have a legal obligation to accommodate employees whose personal religious or spiritual views conflict with the company’s practice,” EEOC regional attorney Melinda C. Dugas said in a release. Aurora Pro did not return a request for a statement prior to press time.
Dive Insight:
Unless it would be an undue hardship on business operations, Title VII requires employers to reasonably accommodate an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs or practices, the EEOC says in its guidance on religious discrimination. Put another way, employers may be required to make reasonable adjustments to the work environment that will allow an employee to practice their religion.
Adjustments include the familiar accommodation requests to modify a work schedule or dress code, such as the delivery employee who wanted Sundays off to attend church, or the Apostolic Pentecostal Christian nurse who asked to wear a scrub skirt, instead of scrub pants, to work because her religion required her to dress modestly and not wear pants.
More recently, employers have faced religious challenges to DEI practices or dress codes that employees believe as pro-LGBTQ. In June, a federal district court sent to trial a case involving ex-Kroger employees who objected on religious grounds to wearing a uniform with the company logo, a four-color heart, because they believed it supported LGBTQ individuals. Kroger said the logo was not an LGBTQ pride rainbow and denied their request for an exception to its dress code. The court ruled that a jury must decide if Kroger would have suffered an undue hardship by granting the request.
The North Carolina case reminds employers that they can’t force an employee into religious rites and rituals. This goes beyond requiring employees to attend religious prayer sessions. In 2018, a federal jury found an employer liable for $5.1 million in damages to 10 workers who were coerced into participating in prayers, religious workshops and spiritual cleansing rituals.
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, about a Washington high school football coach praying on the field, is likely to trigger more workplace discussion about religious accommodations – and may increase accommodation requests, Miller Nash attorneys Souvanny Miller and Michael Porter said in a blog post. In the 6-3 decision, the majority of justices held that a public school board violated the First Amendment’s free speech and free exercise clauses when it fired the coach for praying on the field after the game.
Because the ruling deals with First Amendment restrictions on government entities, it doesn’t directly impact private employers. But it does provide some takeaways, namely that the prayers were brief and personal and students weren’t coerced into participating. Going forward, actions by public or private employers “perceived as ‘hostile’ toward religion are more likely than ever to create legal risk and exposure,” Miller and Porter warned.
