Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination "because of…religion." The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a case that asks whether that law requires the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to accommodate a religious postal employee who refuses to work on Sundays. The case is Groff v. DeJoy . 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." 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 […]
