Supreme Court Issues Ruling In Religious Accommodation Title VII Case

On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States revived an employee's religious discrimination lawsuit, unanimously holding that to deny a sincere religious accommodation request under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, employers must show that the burden of granting it "would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business."

Quick Hits

• The Supreme Court held that to deny a religious accommodation as an "undue hardship" requires an employer to show that it "would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business."
• The impacts on other coworkers may be relevant to the test to the extent those impacts affect the conduct of the employer's business. Coworker animosity towards a particular religion, religion in general, or accommodating religious practices, however, cannot be considered as part of an undue burden analysis.