The EEOC trumpeted a pair of recent federal sector decisions finding government agencies discriminated against workers by failing to provide them with religious accommodations, as the Trump administration continues to push for more workplace faith-based protections.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Office of Federal Operations found the Department of Veterans Affairs and Federal Reserve Board of Governors violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by denying the accommodations.
The Aug. 4 decisions indicate how the EEOC under Republican Acting Chair Andrea Lucas will prioritize religious discrimination cases and how the commission views an employee-friendly test established in the US Supreme Court’s 2023 Groff v. Dejoy decision ruling.
EEOC in-house adjudicators only evaluate appeals of federal employee discrimination complaints against their agencies, but their decisions can be influential for how federal courts and private sector employers handle key employment law issues.
In 2015, for instance, the Democrats on the commission voted to approve a federal sector ruling that discrimination based on sexual orientation violates Title VII. That interpretation of the law was later largely affirmed in the Supreme Court’s landmark Bostock v. Clayton County decision.
The Trump administration has made religious protections a focus. Trump has issued executive orders on faith, and the Office of Personnel Management published a July 30 memo that states federal...
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