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#WorkforceWednesday: The Biden EEOC, New Religious Guidance, and Diversity Training Ban Repealed - Employment Law This Week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
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has recently issued significant decisions against two federal employers for failing to provide reasonable religious accommodations to their employees. These decisions...more
Given the slow progress of civil litigation in the U.S., federal courts continue to hear challenges to employer vaccination mandates imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to 2023, employers generally held the upper hand...more
Divine intervention? John Kluge, a high school orchestra teacher in the Indianapolis area, was let go in 2018 after he refused to address transgender students by their preferred names and pronouns. Mr. Kluge, a Christian...more
If you have a grooming policy based on safety factors (like no beards for firefighters), does that trump an employee’s request for a religious accommodation? Maybe not. A recent Third Circuit decision, Smith v. City of...more
The COVID-19 pandemic brought workplace vaccination policies to the forefront, raising complex questions about religious accommodations. Over four years after the initial rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, these policies remain...more
As modern workplaces grow increasingly diverse, employers must be prepared to accommodate employees’ religious practices and observations in a respectful, inclusive, and lawful manner. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of...more
After the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, on January 30 a federal district court denied dueling motions for summary judgment filed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the U.S. Postal Service, and former Postal...more
Knowing several religious holidays are coming up soon, employers can take steps to avoid triggering religious discrimination and reasonable accommodation lawsuits. Consistently applying paid time off rules can help to prevent...more
Few issues are more sensitive for employers than accommodating employees’ religious practices and observances. In recent years, Muslim employees and their employers have struggled with how to handle the religious requirement...more
Vaccine Exemption Policy Requiring Citation to Official Doctrine Violates First Amendment Madison Houghton and Nathan A. Adams IV In Does 1-11 v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Colorado, 100 F. 4th 1251 (10th Cir. 2024), former...more
Complete answers may be several years in the making. A year ago this month, in Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court of the United States held that an employer who rejects a request for a religious accommodation “must show that...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
Imagine you manage a busy restaurant, and you are working on the schedule for next week. Saturday is your busiest day, and you need all hands on deck, so you need to schedule everyone for that day. Just when you have the...more
Last fall, I reported on a proposed Enforcement Guidance issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on workplace harassment. I gave the proposed guidance a good review overall, although I had some disagreements...more
The Utah Antidiscrimination Act has been amended to expand religious accommodation requirements for employers under Utah law. The Utah Legislature passed House Bill 396 (H.B. 396), and Governor Spencer Cox signed the bill on...more
Chutzpah is a Yiddish word derived from the Aramaic ḥuṣpāh. It means impudence, gall, and an audacious disregard for rules. In the world of employment law, it can aptly describe employees who try to get what they want...more
As flu and other respiratory virus rates peak across the U.S., hospitals and other health care providers are responding by taking measures such as limiting patient visitors. For years, one element of this response has...more
Attacks on Non-Disclosure, Confidentiality, and Non-Compete Agreements in 2023 - On several fronts in 2023, we saw federal agencies and entities attacking the scope and enforceability of certain employment agreements,...more
The teacher had a religious objection. The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday found in favor of a West Point public school teacher whose employment was terminated because he would not address a transgender student by the...more
In last term’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly increased employers’ obligation to consider religious exemption requests under Title VII. Rather than the previous de minimus burden standard,...more
Question: Do employers need to provide a space for employees to worship and/or pray in the office? The short answer is: Maybe. You must reasonably accommodate employees’ sincerely held religious, ethical, or moral...more
The retail industry is a shift-based industry, dependent on workers signing up for weekday and weekend shifts, for holidays, and for times when few average workers would dream of being awake and at work. What if an employee...more
In September 2023, federal trial courts in Wisconsin and Kentucky issued decisions dismissing plaintiffs’ claims related to employers’ COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements....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
Question: Do employers need to provide a space for employees to worship and/or pray in the office? Answer: The short answer is: Maybe. Employers must reasonably accommodate employees’ sincerely held religious, ethical,...more