SCOTUS to answer whether postal workers can claim religious exemption for Sundays off

Gerald Groff is a former mail carrier who quit the USPS after being disciplined for refusing to work on Sundays. He argues that he was entitled to a religious accommodation under both Title VII and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which amended the 1964 Civil Rights Act by defining “religion” as including “all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”

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It was no “undue hardship,” Groff and his lawyers maintain, for the USPS to have accommodated Groff’s Sunday Sabbath observances. “The 1972 amendment to Title VII aimed to ensure that no worker must make the cruel choice of surrendering their faith or their job,” they told the Court. “On its face, the statute provides robust protections for religious employees—after all, ‘undue hardship’ suggests that an employer must incur significant costs or difficulty before it is excused from offering an accommodation.”

Groff lost last year before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which held that granting him a workplace religious accommodation would have imposed an undue hardship on the USPS. Groff’s refusal to work on Sundays, the appellate court said, “created a ‘tense atmosphere'” as other workers “had to work more Sundays to cover Groff’s absences,” which itself created “resentment towards management.” The court further stated: “Groff’s absence also required the other carriers to deliver more mail than they otherwise would have on Sundays.”

[I’ll assume this court will have the common sense to note that people shouldn’t accept jobs that require them to work on Sundays if that is their religious observance. As Damon Root points out, however, this court has actually signaled that they want to expand the reach of the Title VII language, and might now have five votes to do it. I’ll reserve judgment until the decision, but this isn’t a case of telling someone to take off a hijab or stop wearing a cross. If people don’t want to work on Sundays, they should find jobs that doesn’t require it. — Ed]

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