Religious discrimination at work place involves treating employees unfairly due to their religious customs and beliefs. It can be displayed in many forms such as harassment at work, denial of job, denial of promotion or denial of accommodation and firing the employee without a valid reason. However, title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) forbids the act of religious discrimination at work and promotes reasonable religious accommodation, which means that the workplace should make adjustments to allow employees to practice their religion. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces federal laws that make it unlawful to discriminate against employees or job applicants due to their religion, race, color, or sexual orientation (O'Halloran, 2017) . Recently there has been a rise in the number of charges for religious discrimination in the US.
A recent case has been cited in Orlando, which was filed by the EOCC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida for violating the religious discrimination law (Commission, 2017) . The hospitality staffing company failed to provide a practicable accommodation to a worker, Courtnay B. Joseph, by firing him for his religious beliefs. The company customer grooming standards required Joseph to cut his dreadlocks in order for him to keep his position at a hotel in Orlando. Yet, due to Joseph’s religious beliefs as a Rastafarian, he failed to honor the standards and as a result, he was taken off his assignment by the hospitality staff and was never reassigned again.
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The decision made by the company due to the Rastafarian religious faith of Courtnay violates the legal doctrine namely the title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As a result, the company will have to pay $30,000 to Joseph for failing to provide practicable accommodation as damage. The company will also revise and amend its employee’s policy manual and come up with a clear policy that considers providing reasonable accommodation for workers. These changes call for appreciation of the hospitality staffing company since it shows commitment to change and acknowledge of the Civil Rights Law.
However, there are exceptions to the laws governing employee’s rights and in such occasions; it favors the employer (G Rutherglen, 2015) . The court should work to balance practicability of actions committed by an employer to the hardships caused by observing employee’s religious practices. In such an occurrence, there are several cases where the employer has an upper hand in hiring and firing workers. A good example is when workplace safety, health, or security is at risk. In some industries such as health care, hospitality and manufacturing, health and safety issues are of special concern. Whenever this happens, employees can be restricted from wearing their religious outfit at the work place. The attire is considered to be posing undue hardships on the business performance.
Another example is in a case where a company uses at-will employment doctrine, which usually consists of a well-documented agreement (G Rutherglen, 2015) . In its context, the employer maintains an employee’s performance review. It allows the employer to fire employees in a case where they are performing poorly; violate the company’s policies and misconduct. At-will employment functions in such a way that it authorize the employer and employees to work with each other without long-term contracts. It allows the employees to quit the job if they are not satisfied with treatment and allows the employer to change employment terms such as payments or even let go off the employees at their will. The at-will employment doctrine is used to eliminate wrongful termination of employees for no reason and without notice. Nevertheless, in a case where an employer wrongfully fires employees, at-will employment doctrine may protect the employer. Even so, employees are not expected to take advantage of the at-will employment.
Regardless of the protection that the Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964 grants employees, they also have a responsibility regarding their religious behavior in the workplace. Employees should not request changes to accommodate their religious beliefs that are too cumbersome for the employer to a point it deters the business performance. A case where an employer has offered the employees a secluded or private space to practice their religious practices; it is their responsibility to ensure their religious activities such as prayer and Bible study do not disrupt the other workers nor the organization’s activities. In addition, in a case where the company holds mandatory religious meetings, employees who feel the policy is conflicting with their religious beliefs should directly inform the employer that the work environment is problematic to them.
In order for an employer to avoid a religious discrimination lawsuit, they are expected to consider reasonable accommodation of employees’ requests for religious beliefs (O'Halloran, 2017) . The employer should take a number of management precautions such as establish a training program, which is geared towards creating awareness of diversity issues at the work place, coming up with a written organization policy, disciplining the employees logically regardless of their religion and finally react immediately and reasonably to stop any discriminatory conducts by other employees.
The religious policy for Florida prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on their religious beliefs that cover employers with 15 or more employers. It requires every state agency to come up with an affirmative action plan (AAP) and implement it (Eschenfelder, 2013) . The plan should have significant goals that ensure equal employment opportunity despite their religion or race. It also states that veterans are to be considered in job hiring where 10 points should be added to a veteran if the job requires one to take an assessment.
In overall, religious discrimination involves mistreating workers at the workplace due to their religious beliefs. Such acts are prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In addition, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is charged with the mandate of enforcing the federal laws discriminating workers due to their sexual orientation, color, race, or religion.
References
Commission, U. E. (2017). Hospitality Staff To Pay $30,000 To Settle EEOC Religious Discrimination Lawsuit. US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission .
Eschenfelder, R. (2013). Interpreting the Florida Civil Rights Act Of 1992. Labor And Employment Law .
G Rutherglen, B. R. (2015). Private Rights and Private Actions: The Legacy of Civil Rights in the Enforcement of Title VII. Newyork: William S. Hein & Co.
O'Halloran, K. (2017). Religious Discrimination and Cultural Context: A Common Law Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
