Supreme Court Miniseries: Religious Accommodation at Work
Employment Law Now VII-133 - Hot Summer Employment Law Developments
#WorkforceWednesday: SCOTUS Introduces Heightened Standard for Religious Accommodation, Rules Against Affirmative Action, Protects “Expressive” Services - Employment Law This Week®
Employment Law Now VII-130- An Interview With EEOC Commissioner (Vice Chair) Jocelyn Samuels
Employment Law Now VI-116-Top 10 Employment Issues To Consider For The Summer Kick-Off
Labor & Employment Symposium - Topics: Religious Accommodations—Vaccinations; DOL Mental Health Parity Audits
#WorkforceWednesday: OSHA ETS Coming Soon, OSHA Cracks Down on States, and EEOC Updates Guidance - Employment Law This Week®
Employment Law Now V-104 - Religious Accommodations to Vaccine Policies: An EEOC Update and Best Practices
#WorkforceWednesday: The Biden EEOC, New Religious Guidance, and Diversity Training Ban Repealed - Employment Law This Week
#WorkforceWednesday: EEOC Rules and Vaccine Incentives, Prioritizing Worker Health and Safety, Notable Executive Orders - Employment Law This Week®
Can Employers Require COVID-19 Vaccinations?
Vaccines in the time of COVID [More with McGlinchey, Ep. 15]
Deck the Halls (with a lawsuit-free holiday season!)
Employment Law This Week®: DOL’s Association Health Plan Proposal, NJLAD Includes Nursing Mothers, New Unpaid Intern Test, HHS’s Conscience-Based Protections
I-20 - Special Holiday Party Episode
K&L Gates Triage: Avoiding the Risks Associated with Mandatory Vaccination Programs
A single exception can now unravel your entire workplace safety policy. The Third Circuit's decision on May 30, 2025, in Smith v. Atlantic City, underscores how even minor exceptions to grooming or masking rules can expose...more
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Labor released their 2026 Congressional Budget Justifications (CBJ) on May 30, 2025, providing valuable information related to the EEOC’s enforcement...more
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many employers established internal procedures to evaluate employees' requests for religious and medical-based exemptions from vaccination mandates. ...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In two cases issued by the Seventh Circuit, Passarella and Dottenwhy v. Aspirus, Inc. and Bube and Hedrington v. Aspirus Hospital, Inc. the Court held that at the motion to dismiss stage, the fact that a...more
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers attempting to enforce safety policies faced resistance from employees opposed to vaccination mandates. In many cases, employees claimed that taking the vaccine violated...more
Applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy, which clarified the standard for undue hardship in religious accommodation cases under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a federal district court in Indiana...more
On September 25 a federal court in New York dismissed a lawsuit accusing an employer of failing to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs as a member of the “Temple of the Healing Spirits” located in “Deland city,...more
On July 31, 2023, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals revived a Christian teacher’s religious discrimination lawsuit over his refusal to refer to transgender students by their names and pronouns with which they identified. ...more
The Supreme Court’s blockbuster decisions last term dominated the headlines – and many rulings will have a lasting impact on employer practices. The Justices continued to shape the workplace law landscape by ruling on an...more
In a previous blog, we summarized the recent case of Groff v. Dejoy, where the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously clarified the undue hardship standard under Title VII, a federal law in the United States that prohibits employment...more
On April 18, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Groff v. DeJoy, a case raising the issue of how great a burden an employer must bear in order to accommodate an employee’s religious belief or practices....more
If you take on a federal contract, does that make you a state actor? No, according to a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel in Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company. During World War II, the Army included Smucker’s apple butter in its...more
Employment litigators and Constitutional Law attorneys alike should pay close attention to the United States Supreme Court’s calendar, as the Court recently agreed to take up a case that has the potential to change the way...more
On Jan. 13, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether the de minimis cost test for religious accommodations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should endure. The Supreme Court granted the petition...more
Whether to protect the health and safety of their workplaces, to comply with governmental requirements when applicable, or a combination of the two, many employers have adopted mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies. Faced...more
The EEOC has once again updated its guidance and answers regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic’s interaction with anti-discrimination laws. We previously discussed this guidance here. This guidance, updated on March 1,...more
Throughout the COVID pandemic, healthcare employers have navigated the challenge of balancing safety concerns with employee requests for religious exemption from the vaccine. Since lifting the stay of the CMS rule requiring...more
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) just updated its online COVID-19 technical guidance to further explain its position regarding religious objections to employer COVID-19 vaccination requirements,...more
Employers now have clarification that they will be able mandate the COVID-19 vaccine among their workers in certain circumstances without running afoul of key federal anti-discrimination laws, according to updated guidance...more
The EEOC recently released a draft of its updated guidance on religious discrimination, which – if adopted and finalized – could alter the legal standards applied in workplace disputes for the nation’s employers generally and...more
By all accounts, the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 is a matter of when, not if. According to the World Health Organization, as of August 25, 2020, 173 potential vaccines are currently being developed in labs across...more
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin recently addressed an employer's responsibilities to accommodate an employee's religious beliefs. In EEOC v. Walmart Stores East, LP, the court examined whether...more
Employers subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and most state laws understand that they have an obligation to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs of their employees, unless such accommodation...more
Can a sincerely held religious belief – or a wife’s personal jealousy – justify a male employee refusing to work with women coworkers or other professional contacts? A federal district court in North Carolina is poised to...more
In a case of first impression, a federal appeals court just found that an applicant’s request for a religious accommodation did not constitute protected activity under Title VII for the purpose of establishing a retaliation...more