Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing and development.

Still, we, here at Miletti Law®, feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness, free of charge, about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, in order to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to creating authoritative, trustworthy & distinctive content, which looks to not only educate, but also deliver in a manner that only Miletti Law® can. Usually, this content is featured as videos posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and benefit from the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

To achieve our goal of keeping you informed, this blog is Part XVIII and an update of our series on federal laws that apply to the issues of workplace harassment, discrimination, & retaliation in New York. In Part XVII, we provided you with an overview of “Employer Obligation to Reasonably Accommodate Pregnancy” under the various federal laws. Accordingly, we now move the discussion forward with an overview of “Religion-Related Protections,” as provided under applicable federal laws in this blog and part XVIII of the series.

Religion-Related Protections under Federal Laws Applicable to Workplace Harassment, Discrimination, & Retaliation in New York.

NOTE: As mentioned in the previous blog and Part XVII of the series, the information regarding the religion-related protections discussed in this short blog was current as of March 26, 2021.

Provision of Religion-Related Protections

Pursuant to Section 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), the state of New York provides religion-related protections. This implies that New York employees can bring claims on religious (religion-based) discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Religious Discrimination and Protections Provided under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Pursuant to Section 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j) of Title VII, all aspects of religious practice and observance, including belief, are included as part of the prohibitions against discrimination based on religion provided under Title VII. Therefore, provided that no undue hardship would result from an accommodation provided by the employer, employers are required by Title VII to provide reasonable accommodations to sincerely held religious beliefs and convictions of their employees.

In a past case, “Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2028, 2032 (2015),” it has been held by the Supreme Court that if an employer’s refusal or failure to hire an applicant who requires to be provided with an accommodation because of their sincerely held religious beliefs and convictions is motivated by the employer’s desire to avoid accommodating an applicant’s religious practice, then such an employer would be considered liable and in violation of Title VII’s prohibitions against discrimination based on religion.

Under Title VII, it is an employee or applicant’s obligation, after letting the employer know about their need for an accommodation, to identify those employment rules or practices that interfere with their religious beliefs or practices, which is necessary for the purposes of assessment by the employer. On their part, the employer’s obligation is to consider, in good faith, whether (1) it is possible to provide such an accommodation (2) if given, such an accommodation would pose an undue hardship of the employer’s business operations.

However, while it is the right of employees and applicants to be provided with religious accommodations, employers are not required to offer employees and applicants their “preferred” accommodation. As required by Title VII, employers satisfy their obligations once they provide “reasonable” accommodations to those employees in need of such. Further, employers are not obligated to show that the accommodation they provided their employees with was the “best” accommodation or that an alternative would pose more of a hardship or would be worse off.

Feel welcome to read our blog titled “A Quick Guide to Religious Accommodation Requirements V,” which is accessible at https://milettilaw.com/f/a-quick-guide-to-religious-accommodation-requirements-v, for detailed information regarding the requirements that must be satisfied for an employee or job applicant to qualify for a religious accommodation. This information also includes the roles, including the duty to engage employees in the interactive process, which employers must play when their employees seek to be provided with accommodations for their deeply-held religious convictions and beliefs.

In Part XIX, we will continue hammering on more educative & enlightening content and provide you with an overview of “Enforcement Mechanism for Discrimination, Harassment, and/or Retaliation Violations,” as provided under federal laws applicable to workplace harassment, discrimination, & retaliation in New York.

Until then, stay tuned for more legal guidance, training, and counsel. In the interim, reach us with questions or comments on our website at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.