The Biden administration’s Justice Department has submitted a brief to the Supreme Court that should be the subject of a false-labeling charge. An evangelical Christian postman lost his job because he would not deliver mail on Sunday. A federal appellate court ruled against his employment-discrimination claim because accommodating his religious conviction would require the U.S. Postal Service to incur more than "de minimis" hardship. The Supreme Court held in a 1977 split decision ( Trans World Airways v. Hardison ) that an employer escapes liability for religious discrimination if an accommodation would impose more than such a minimal burden on the employer. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the postman’s Civil Rights Act claim , 33 friends of the Court have submitted briefs supporting him, and the case will be argued on April 18. The Trump administration, for its part, had urged the Supreme Court to revisit the 1977 rule that had resulted in frequent denial of federal employment rights to Sabbath-observers. The Biden administration’s Justice Department said in a brief filed on March 23 that it had "reexamined the issue." Explicitly reversing the Trump administration’s legal position, the Biden DOJ urged the Court to retain the Hardison formulation […]

Tags: