Supreme Court Decision in Groff v. DeJoy Increases Burden on Employers Under Title VII for Denying Religious Accommodations
Employers will now have to show a higher degree of hardship to deny employee requests for religious accommodation. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 29 C.F.R. § 1605.2(b)(1), employers are required to grant employee requests for religious accommodation “unless the employer demonstrates that [the requested] accommodation would result in undue hardship on the conduct of its business.” On July 29, 2023, the United States Supreme Court unanimously clarified in Groff v. DeJoy that a religious accommodation only results in “undue hardship” when “the burden of granting [the] accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.” The “substantial increased cost” standard is a departure from the lower “more than a de minimis cost” standard that has prevailed since 1975. For the last 48 years, employers could deny religious accommodations for causing “undue hardship” if the accommodation would impose “more than