For the First Time in Nearly Fifty Years the Supreme Court Explains the Contours of “Undue Hardship” in the Context of Affording Religious Accommodations Under Title VII

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued an opinion in Groff v. Dejoy, that affects almost all employers, including institutions of higher education.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against workers for practicing their religion unless the employer can show that the worker’s religious practice cannot “reasonably” be accommodated without “undue hardship.” On Thursday, for the first time in nearly 50 years, the Supreme Court expounded on the contours of “undue hardship.” Specifically, in a unanimous 21-page opinion written by Justice Alito, the Supreme Court held that Title VII requires an employer that denies religious accommodation to show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a concurring opinion, in which Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined.

The case began when Gerald Groff, an Evangelical Christian who believes that Sunday should be devoted to worship and rest, sued the U.S. Postal Service for disciplining him for not working on Sunday. Groff took a mail delivery job with the Postal Service in 2012 – a position that did not initially involve Sunday work. That changed after the Postal Service agreed to facilitate Sunday deliveries for Amazon. To avoid Sunday work, Groff transferred to a rural Postal Service station that did not make Sunday deliveries. But Amazon eventually reached that USPS outpost too. Groff remained unwilling to work on Sunday, and so the Postal Service redistributed his Sunday deliveries to other workers.  Groff alleged that he received “progressive discipline” for failing to work on Sunday.  Eventually, he resigned.

Groff sued under Title VII, asserting that the Postal Service could have accommodated his Sunday Sabbath practice “without undue hardship on the conduct of [the Postal Service’s] business.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j).  The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted summary judgment to the Postal Service. See 2021 WL 1264030 (ED Pa., Apr. 6, 2021) – a decision the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. The Third Circuit grounded its affirmance in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977), construing the “undue hardship” standard under Title VII to  be met when an employer would be required “to  ‘bear more than a de minimis cost’ to provide a religious accommodation.” 35 F.4th 162, 174 n.18 (quoting 432 U.S. at 84). The Third Circuit found the de minimis cost standard met, agreeing with the Postal Service that exempting Groff from Sunday work “imposed on his coworkers, disrupted the workplace and workflow, and diminished employee morale.” 35 F.4th at 174.

The Supreme Court vacated and remanded, holding that showing a “more than de minimis cost” does not suffice to establish “undue hardship” under Title VII. Interestingly, the parties agreed that the “de minimis” test was not right, but differed as to the applicable standard. The Court ultimately held that, in assessing whether a requested accommodation would impose an “undue hardship” on an employer, courts should look to Hardison’s repeated references to “substantial” burdens – in short, that “undue hardship” is shown when a burden is “substantial” in the overall context of an employer’s business. Put another way, an employer must now show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business. The Court sent the opinion back to the lower courts for further proceedings in light of this “clarified context-specific standard.”

The ruling is largely a victory for the plaintiff, in that to prevail the Postal Service must now satisfy a more demanding standard, but the implications extend far beyond Groff’s dispute with USPS. All employers subject to Title VII – including institutions of higher education – must now satisfy this more demanding standard should they opt to decline a request for religious accommodations. In refusing such requests, institutions of higher education should consider the particular accommodation at issue, and its practical impact on the university’s or college’s operation. Although it remains to be seen how courts will apply this context-specific standard, all employers – including institutions of higher education – should review and revise their policies and procedures with this standard in mind.