The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday bolstered the ability of employees to obtain accommodations at work for their religious practices, reviving a lawsuit by an evangelical Christian former mail carrier accusing the Postal Service of discrimination after being disciplined for refusing to show up for work on Sundays.
The 9-0 ruling threw out a lower court's decision rejecting a claim made by Gerald Groff, a former mail carrier in Pennsylvania, that the Postal Service's actions refusing to exempt him from working on Sundays, when he observes the Sabbath, violated federal anti-discrimination law. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had found that Groff's absences placed too much of a hardship on his co-workers and employer. The Supreme Court ordered the 3rd Circuit to reconsider the matter.
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The Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has a track record of expanding religious rights, often siding with Christian plaintiffs. Groff's case centered on a federal anti-discrimination law called Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on religion and other factors including race, sex and national origin.
Under Title VII, employers must make allowances for a worker's religious observance or practices unless that would cause the business "undue hardship" - which the Supreme Court in a 1977 case called Trans World Airlines v. Hardison...
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