Arkansas Court Allows Religious Discrimination Case - The National Law Review
Accommodating an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs can be tricky. In EEOC v. Kroger, a court in Arkansas gives some guidance on how to handle these claims.
The case law surrounding religious failure-to-accommodate claims is pretty well-settled. First, the employee must show that a workplace rule conflicts with his or her sincerely held religious belief. Second, the employee must inform the employer of the conflict. Third, the employee has to be disciplined for failing to comply with the conflicting workplace rule. But what if there is a conflict about what the workplace rule really means and whether it is connected to any sort of religious belief? The court in Arkansas has now said that such an issue may be up to a jury.
The Mystery of the Colorful Heart
In 2018, Kroger launched a company initiative entitled “Our Promise.” The campaign had four prongs:
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Everyone friendly and caring
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Everything fresh
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Uplift every way
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Improve every day
So far, so good. These four ideals were represented by four concentric hearts of different colors. In mid-2018, Kroger announced a new uniform policy: store employees would wear a blue apron with the Kroger logo and the Our Promise heart symbol. Kroger sent out a video and card to all employees explaining the apron and what each color of the heart meant.
By April 2019, supervisors at the Kroger in Conway, Arkansas, began distributing the new aprons that included the Our Promise heart. Several...
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