RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION IN THE WORKPLACE: - Creating an Inclusive Environment

The first sixteen words of the First Amendment, called the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, provide Americans of all faiths or no faith with the right to religious freedom. [...] As long as the employer has reasonably accommodated an employee’s religious needs, the employer need not consider the employee’s alternative suggested accommodations even if the employee’s preferred accommodation would not cause undue hardship to the employer.5 An employer should not schedule tests or training in a manner that totally precludes the observance of the Sabbath or religious holidays. [...] Employees do not have to justify or prove their religious belief to the employer (for example, the employee need not provide a note from clergy): an employer is required to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs, subject to the undue hardship rule. [...] Therefore, religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others to be entitled to protection and courts must not presume to determine the place of a particular belief in a religion or the plausibility of a religious claim. [...] In short, the fact that no religious group espouses such beliefs or the fact that the religious group to which the individual professes to belong may not accept such belief will not determine whether the belief is a religious belief.