New Jersey employment laws prohibit employers from discriminating against employees and job applicants on the basis of religion. At both the state and federal levels, laws dealing with religious discrimination in employment have two components. First, employers may not make adverse decisions or take adverse actions based solely or primarily on an individual’s religious beliefs, practices, or identity. Second, employers must make reasonable accommodations for employee’s religious practices, as long as doing so does not impose an “undue hardship” on them. The U.S. Supreme Court recently revisited the current standard, established in 1977, for determining what constitutes an undue hardship for religious accommodations. The court’s June 2023 decision in Groff v. Dejoy places a greater burden on employers to demonstrate undue hardship. This potentially grants greater rights to employees with religious obligations.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 defines “religion” to include “all aspects of religious observance and practice.” It requires employers to “reasonably accommodate” employees’ religious observances or practices, with an exception for “undue hardship” to the employer. The statute does not define this term.
In 1977, the Supreme Court addressed the meaning of the term in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison. It held that anything “more than a de minimis cost” would pose an undue hardship for the employer. This effectively means that anything beyond an insignificant cost to the employer would be excused under Title VII.
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