My friend got bad news that United did not expect his exemption.
QUESTIONING THE ORTHODOXY OF SINCERELY HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OR REQUIRING A CLERGY, PLACE OF WORSHIP, OR A THIRD PARTY TO AGREE WITH OR AFFIRM SUCH RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IS UNLAWFUL
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against its employees on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs. See 42 U.S.C. §2000e-2(a) (“It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”); see also EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 575 U.S. 768 (2015) (same). Title VII defines “religion” as “all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief.” 42 U.S.C. §2000e(j). Moreover, as the EEOC has made clear, Title VII’s protections also extend nonreligious beliefs if related to morality, ultimate ideas about life, purpose, and death. See EEOC, Questions and Answers: Religious Discrimination in the Workplace (June 7, 2008), (“Title VII’s protections also extend to those who are discriminated against or need accommodation because they profess no religious beliefs . . . . Religious beliefs include theistic beliefs, i.e. those that include a belief in God as well as non-theistic ‘moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.’ Although courts generally resolve doubts about particular beliefs in favor of finding that they are religious, beliefs are not protected merely because they are strongly held. Rather, religion typically concerns ‘ultimate ideas’ about ‘life, purpose, and death’”).
Employees may have religious accommodation requests stating their sincerely held religious beliefs injecting any of the three currently available COVID-19 vaccines would be a sin and a violation of their religious beliefs because they are manufactured and produced with, tested on, or otherwise developmentally connected to aborted fetal cell lines. United has responded to many of these submissions with intrusive and irrelevant questions about employees’ past personal health decisions and the theological bases for those decisions, or demands that employees vet their religious beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines with a third party to justify their accommodation requests. The premises of these questions—that an employee’s current request for religious accommodation must be consistent with the employees’ prior health decisions and religious understandings, or must be acknowledged by a person other than the employee—are legally invalid premises for deciding religious accommodation requests, and any denial based on such premises violates Title VII.
Employers are not permitted to determine which religious adherent has a “correct” or “proper” or “valid” understanding of religious doctrine, or whether any employee’s sincerely held
https://lc.org/Site%20Images/Resources/ReligiousBeliefs.pdf
My friend got bad news that United did not expect his exemption.
QUESTIONING THE ORTHODOXY OF SINCERELY HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OR REQUIRING A CLERGY, PLACE OF WORSHIP, OR A THIRD PARTY TO AGREE WITH OR AFFIRM SUCH RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IS UNLAWFUL
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against its employees on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs. See 42 U.S.C. §2000e-2(a) (“It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”); see also EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 575 U.S. 768 (2015) (same). Title VII defines “religion” as “all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief.” 42 U.S.C. §2000e(j). Moreover, as the EEOC has made clear, Title VII’s protections also extend nonreligious beliefs if related to morality, ultimate ideas about life, purpose, and death. See EEOC, Questions and Answers: Religious Discrimination in the Workplace (June 7, 2008), (“Title VII’s protections also extend to those who are discriminated against or need accommodation because they profess no religious beliefs . . . . Religious beliefs include theistic beliefs, i.e. those that include a belief in God as well as non-theistic ‘moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.’ Although courts generally resolve doubts about particular beliefs in favor of finding that they are religious, beliefs are not protected merely because they are strongly held. Rather, religion typically concerns ‘ultimate ideas’ about ‘life, purpose, and death’”).
Employees may have religious accommodation requests stating their sincerely held religious beliefs injecting any of the three currently available COVID-19 vaccines would be a sin and a violation of their religious beliefs because they are manufactured and produced with, tested on, or otherwise developmentally connected to aborted fetal cell lines. United has responded to many of these submissions with intrusive and irrelevant questions about employees’ past personal health decisions and the theological bases for those decisions, or demands that employees vet their religious beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines with a third party to justify their accommodation requests. The premises of these questions—that an employee’s current request for religious accommodation must be consistent with the employees’ prior health decisions and religious understandings, or must be acknowledged by a person other than the employee—are legally invalid premises for deciding religious accommodation requests, and any denial based on such premises violates Title VII.
Employers are not permitted to determine which religious adherent has a “correct” or “proper” or “valid” understanding of religious doctrine, or whether any employee’s sincerely held
https://lc.org/Site%20Images/Resources/ReligiousBeliefs.pdf
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