The United States Supreme Court handed religious workers a victory in a decision issued this week. In Groff v. DeJoy, the Court held that an employer cannot avoid providing a religious accommodation under Title VII's "undue hardship" standard merely by showing that it would impose "more than a de minimis cost" on the employer. Rather, the employer denying an accommodation must establish that accommodating the worker's religious belief would impose substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business. The de minimis test derived from a 1977 Supreme Court decision Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977) and was widely adopted by lower courts. The test represented a fairly low threshold for employers, which the Court has now unanimously disavowed.
Groff arose when a former postal service worker and Evangelical Christian Gerald Groff filed suit against the United States Postal Service (USPS) for religious discrimination under Title VII, claiming that the USPS failed to reasonably accommodate his religious observance of the Sabbath. Groff had joined the USPS in 2012, and originally was not required to deliver mail on Sundays. However, the USPS later entered into a contract with Amazon that required Sunday deliveries and a subsequent agreement with the postal workers union outlining how Sunday deliveries would be assigned. Groff first sought...
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other speakers made false claims in remarks at the Republican midterm convention’s second night Thursday. Here is a fact check of some...