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#WorkforceWednesday: The Biden EEOC, New Religious Guidance, and Diversity Training Ban Repealed - Employment Law This Week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
Since vaccines became available in response to COVID-19, courts have dealt with an onslaught of litigation involving religious accommodation in the workplace. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...more
Many different federal and state laws require employers to provide “reasonable” accommodations. These laws include the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), and Title VII of the...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
On July 28, 2025, the United States Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) issued a memorandum endorsing federal employees expressing their religious beliefs in the workplace. Specifically, OPM Director Scott Kupor instructed...more
Six months into the new Trump administration, it is clear that the EEOC is concentrating its efforts on religious discrimination in the workplace. Since President Trump’s inauguration, 25% of the new lawsuits or enforcement...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
Employment discrimination in the workplace is alive and well. Indeed, according to Monster’s recent Workplace Discrimination Poll, only 9% of workers claim to have NOT faced some form of workplace discrimination. There have...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
Suncakes NC, LLC, a North Carolina-based company, and Suncakes, LLC, a Texas-based company doing business as IHOP (collectively “Suncakes”), will pay $40,000 and provide other relief to settle a religious discrimination and...more
A North Carolina restaurant franchisee has agreed to pay $40,000 and take other corrective measures to settle a religious discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the EEOC after being accused of denying a cook’s...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
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
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
The New Year serves as a time to take note of some significant employment law changes in the past year to longstanding rules and requirements regarding employer accommodation obligations. This article addresses a U.S. Supreme...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
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
Hair. In some religions it is considered a sacred gift from God that should not be cut. In other religions, it must be styled, covered, or cut in particular ways. These religious practices may result in employees’ requesting...more