The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is beginning to clarify an employer’s burden in workplace religious accommodation cases after the Supreme Court of the United States’ Groff v. DeJoy decision in 2023. Two post-Groff federal workforce decisions suggest that employers must engage in a robust and well-documented interactive process in identifying religious reasonable accommodations and that employers’ undue hardship burden has become more difficult, while employees’ burden has lessened. The EEOC likely will apply the same analysis to the private sector.

Quick Hits

• EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas is focused on expanding religious rights in both private and federal workplaces.
• The first two post-Groff federal workforce decisions from the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations (OFO) offer practical insights into how the EEOC will enforce religious accommodation obligations with respect to private-sector employers.
• Both cases emphasize that workplace religious accommodation requires that employers engage in a robust interactive process that heavily favors employees.

Introduction

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers must reasonably accommodate employees’ sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, or observances, unless doing so would cause an undue hardship. In Groff, the Supreme Court held that the undue hardship standard requires the employer to establish that the accommodation would result in a substantial burden, meaning significant...

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