Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
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Date: February 02, 2023 01:58PM
I find the Groff v DeJoy case pretty alarming. The linked article above gives a thumbnail sketch of the case.
This from a NYT article by Linda Greenhouse, their long-time SCOTUS reporter:
An accommodation requiring an employer “to bear more than a de minimis cost” — meaning a small or trifling cost — need not be granted, the court said in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison. In that case, an airline maintenance worker claimed a legal right to avoid Saturday shifts so he could observe the tenets of the Worldwide Church of God, which he had recently joined. Ruling for the airline, the court noted that if one worker got Saturdays off for religion reasons, the burden would fall on other workers who might have nonreligious reasons for wanting to have the weekend off.
“We will not readily construe the statute to require an employer to discriminate against some employees in order to enable others to observe their Sabbath,” the court said.
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So TWA v Hardison is long-standing precedent that has survived multiple challenges, and more than a dozen attempts to legislate against it. This SCOTUS, however, is considered likely to overturn it.
More from Greenhouse:
The decision to hear his appeal brings the Supreme Court to a juncture both predictable and remarkable. It is predictable because Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have all called for a case that would provide a vehicle for overturning a precedent that is clearly in tension with the current court’s privileging of religious claims above all others, whether in the context of public health measures during the Covid-19 pandemic or anti-discrimination claims brought by employees of religious organizations.
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Greenhouse then went on to note how the original provision in the Civil Rights Act was meant to protect minority religions, but SCOTUS has turned down several cases involving minority religions, but accepted this one from an Evangelical Christian. Hmmm.
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The plaintiff in that case, Jason Small, was a Jehovah’s Witness. In two other cases the court has turned down in the past few years, the employees seeking religious accommodations were Seventh-day Adventists. The religious-accommodation provision of Title VII — a foundational civil rights law that prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race and sex as well as religion — has long been understood to protect adherents of just such minority faiths. A friend of the court brief filed in the new case by scholars of religion and employment law on behalf of Mr. Groff argues that the provision, properly interpreted, furthers constitutional values by making sure that followers of underrepresented faiths may worship in their own way “without putting their job at risk, to the same extent as adherents of more familiar faiths that are less often burdened by employers.”
It may be just a coincidence, but the plaintiff who finally persuaded the justices to take his case is in fact, according to the joint statement of facts agreed to by the parties, “an evangelical Christian within the Protestant tradition.” When the court doubtless rules for him later this term, the decision will not stand for a vindication of minority rights. It will instead signify the court’s complete identification with the movement in the country’s politics to elevate religion over all other elements of civil society.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/opinion/religion-supreme-court.html