The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case testing how far employers must go to accommodate the religious views of their employees. Federal civil rights law requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs of workers as long as that accommodation does not impose an "undue hardship" on the employer’s business. Nearly a half-century ago, the Supreme Court defined an undue hardship as a substantial additional cost, but it also said that the cost need not be more than a de minimis amount, defined in the dictionary as a trifling amount. That language has long angered religious groups of all kinds. And now they are pressing the conservative Supreme Court supermajority to overrule or modify its prior ruling. Former postal worker Gerald Groff, an Evangelical Christian, brought the case after the postal service signed a contract with Amazon to deliver packages all seven days of the week. Groff was a carrier associate in rural Pennsylvania assigned to fill in delivery gaps when more senior carriers were absent, and the new contract meant he could no longer take off every Sunday. He eventually quit his job and sued the postal service for violating his religious rights. At Tuesday’s […]
