Title 7 Religious Discrimination
Religious discrimination under Title VII as defined by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) involves treating a person unfavorably because of his or her religious beliefs. The law protects not only people who belong to traditional, organized religions but also others who have sincerely held religious, ethical or moral beliefs. The law forbids discrimination on the basis of religion in any and all aspects of employment. This includes hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, and benefits. Title VII also prohibits workplace segregation based on religion, such as assigning an employee to a non-customer contact position because of actual or presumed customer preference.
Title VII also addresses reasonable accommodation in relation to religion. The law requires that the employer must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the employers business. For example, if an employee needs to be off work on Sunday mornings to regularly attend church services it would be the responsibility of the employer to reasonably attempt to accommodate this need. An accommodation for this could include paying another employee to cover the Sunday morning shift, even if it requires paying overtime. Or the employer could hire an additional employee to be able to cover the shift.
Since Title 7 of the United States Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 there have been several judicial decisions that have molded the way this law in interpreted and applied. The first such court case that I came across was the case of Welsh V. United States which brought into question what types of beliefs can be used to obtain conscientious objector status when being selected to go to war. In this case the prosecutor was convicted of refusing to accept induction into the armed forces; he did claim conscientious objector status but did not base this decision off religion. He did not
Title VII also addresses reasonable accommodation in relation to religion. The law requires that the employer must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the employers business. For example, if an employee needs to be off work on Sunday mornings to regularly attend church services it would be the responsibility of the employer to reasonably attempt to accommodate this need. An accommodation for this could include paying another employee to cover the Sunday morning shift, even if it requires paying overtime. Or the employer could hire an additional employee to be able to cover the shift.
Since Title 7 of the United States Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 there have been several judicial decisions that have molded the way this law in interpreted and applied. The first such court case that I came across was the case of Welsh V. United States which brought into question what types of beliefs can be used to obtain conscientious objector status when being selected to go to war. In this case the prosecutor was convicted of refusing to accept induction into the armed forces; he did claim conscientious objector status but did not base this decision off religion. He did not
Cited: * http://files.ali-aba.org/thumbs/datastorage/skoobesruoc/pdf/CL018-CH15_thumb.pdf * http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=5&xmldoc=2002835289F3d546_1774.xml&docbase=CSLWAR2-1986-2006&SizeDisp=7 * http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm * http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=9&xmldoc=2002450194FSupp2d256_1427.xml&docbase=CSLWAR2-1986-2006&SizeDisp=7 * http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/108/108.F3d.1569.95-2935.html