Staying True to Title VII: Finding a Solution that Both Accommodates Religion and Is Reasonable

by Rachel Schwartz*

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion by requiring employers to accommodate their employees whose religious observances conflict with their job duties. The text of the statute states that an employer must offer a “reasonable accommodation” to such employees, but it fails to define the term precisely. In a single sentence in Ansonia Board of Education v. Philbrook, the Supreme Court suggested that a reasonable religious accommodation must eliminate the conflict between religious practices and employment requirements. Based on this precedent, as well as the plain meaning and purpose of Title VII, this Contribution argues that the proper understanding of a reasonable religious accommodation requires a two-part analysis, first asking whether the accommodation eliminates the conflict and second, examining whether it is reasonable. Importantly, such an approach ensures that religious employees are accommodated and yet it is not too onerous for employers due to additional language in Title VII that protects employers from having to provide reasonable religious accommodations where doing so will result in undue hardship on the conduct of their business.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it is unlawful for an employer to discharge an employee on the basis of religion.¹ A 1972 amendment to Title VII clarified that religion “includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”² Though brief, this plain text provides three important clarifications: (1) an employer must accommodate an employee’s religious practices, and (2) that accommodation must be reasonable, (3) unless doing so would cause undue hardship on the employer’s business.

The trouble with the language of Title VII is that it falls short of explaining exactly what constitutes a reasonable accommodation or undue hardship. As a result, a passing suggestion by the Supreme Court that a reasonable accommodation is one that “eliminates the conflict between employment requirements and religious practices” is persuasive.³ However, because this language comes from a single sentence buried in the middle of its decision in Ansonia Board of Education v. Philbrook, not all circuit courts have interpreted it as binding.⁴ Nonetheless, the reading most consistent with the text and purpose of Title VII, as well as the language in Philbrook, is that a reasonable religious accommodation must eliminate the conflict between religious practices and employment responsibilities.

Beginning with the plain meaning of the word “accommodate,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines “accommodate” as “to furnish with something desired, needed or suited”; “to bring into agreement or accord.”⁵ In the employment context, this means an employer must adjust its employment practices to bring them into agreement with the employee’s needed result.⁶ In other words, an employee’s duties must be altered to eliminate any disagreement or conflict with their religious practices.⁷

Public policy considerations help make sense of why an accommodation must completely eliminate any existing conflict. Analogizing to the Americans with Disabilities Act⁸—which sets out the requirements for a reasonable accommodation on the basis of disability—an employer who built half of a ramp to “accommodate” a wheelchair-bound employee would never be said to have fulfilled their legal duties. Likewise, it makes little sense in the Title VII religious accommodation context to allow for an employer to solve for some, but not all, of the conflicts with their employee’s religious practices and nevertheless meet their statutory burden to provide a reasonable accommodation.

Importantly, concluding that a religious accommodation must completely eliminate the conflict between religious practices and job duties to satisfy Title VII does not read out the word “reasonable” from the statute.⁹ Quite to the contrary, there may be situations in which an employer’s offer to eliminate the conflict is still unreasonable due to other shortcomings, such as forcing an employee to do something else against their religious beliefs or substantially impacting their pay, employment status, or employment benefits.¹⁰ These secondary considerations make clear that eliminating the conflict is a necessary condition in the reasonable religious accommodation analysis, but not a sufficient one.

For instance, in Baker v. Home Depot, an employee required Sundays off due to his religious belief that the Sabbath should be a day of rest.¹¹ After years of complying with this request, his employer began scheduling him for Sunday shifts and requiring that he either show up in the afternoon after attending church or switch to a part-time, rather than full-time, position.¹² The first proposal of working after church was improper on its face because of its failure to eliminate the conflict of not working on the Sabbath.¹³ By contrast, the second proposal of switching to part-time employment met the first prong of the reasonable religious accommodation analysis, as changing the employee’s schedule would eliminate the need to work on Sundays.¹⁴ However, taking the part-time position would have likely resulted in a pay cut as well as the loss of certain employment benefits provided only to full-time employees.¹⁵ Thus, the Second Circuit advised that even if the offer of part-time employment would eliminate the conflict, it still may be unreasonable if it “causes [an employee] to suffer an inexplicable diminution in his employee status or benefits.”¹⁶ As this case makes clear, even where an employer’s offer is consistent with the plain meaning of “accommodate,” it may still be deemed unreasonable by the court.

Similarly, in Cooper v. Oak Rubber Co., an employer’s proposal that an employee use her vacation days to avoid working on the Sabbath was deemed unreasonable.¹⁷ The Sixth Circuit highlighted that the employee stood to lose a benefit “enjoyed by all other employees who do not share the same religious conflict,” a clear violation of Title VII.¹⁸ Again,  although the use of vacation days may have completely eliminated the conflict by permitting the employee to skip all scheduled Sabbath shifts, it was still found to be unreasonable.¹⁹ Consistent with the plain meaning of Title VII, reasonableness acted as the second part of the statutory analysis after the initial finding that the accommodation would completely eliminate the conflict.

A major critique of this two-part approach to determining what constitutes a reasonable religious accommodation is that it creates a one-sided inquiry that greatly favors employees.²⁰ In fact, when amending the text of Title VII in 1972, the sponsor of the amendment, Senator Jennings Randolph, made clear that he hoped the amendment would encourage flexibility between employees and employers alike in the religious accommodation process.²¹ Though it may seem as though the two-part approach gives employees exactly what they want with little recourse for employers, and therefore is contrary to Senator Randolph’s wishes, this is wholly untrue.

First, it is undisputed that Title VII requires bilateral cooperation between employees and employers, meaning both sides must be willing to give and take during the accommodation process.²² Consequently, where there are multiple possible reasonable accommodations, an employer need not provide the employee’s preferred option.²³ Instead, once an employer has offered a reasonable accommodation, they have met their Title VII burden.²⁴ This gives employers control over the final accommodation offered to an employee, allowing them to make the best decision for their business, provided it meets the other requirements of Title VII.

Second, Title VII by no means imposes a duty on the employer to accommodate at all costs.²⁵ As mentioned above, the text of Title VII states that an employer must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious practices unless doing so would result in “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”²⁶ Thus, if an employer is faced with a situation where all potential reasonable religious accommodations would result in undue hardship on its business, it need not provide an accommodation at all.

In Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court clarified what constitutes “undue hardship” under Title VII.²⁷ Rejecting prior interpretations that undue hardship merely requires a de minimis cost faced by the employer, the Court instead interpreted the standard as necessitating a substantial burden in the overall context of the employer’s business.²⁸ This analysis takes into account the proposed accommodations and their impacts on the employer’s business in light of its nature, size, and operating cost.²⁹ Like bilateral cooperation, the undue hardship analysis encourages flexibility and compromise between employers and employees. It is insufficient that a religious accommodation may be trying or inconvenient for the employer, which makes sense given the purpose of Title VII.³⁰ However, where an employer can clearly demonstrate that providing a proper religious accommodation—one that completely eliminates the conflict and is reasonable—would impose a substantial burden on its business, Title VII permits said employer to forgo doing so.

The concepts of bilateral cooperation and undue hardship permit employers to be open and honest about the realities of their businesses and the impact that may have on their ability to provide reasonable religious accommodations. Consequently, the “undue hardship” prong of Title VII clearly serves as a backstop for employers in the religious accommodation process. To achieve Title VII’s desired balance between the rights of employers and employees alike, it follows that the “reasonable accommodation” prong must similarly provide concrete protections for employees. The best way to strike this balance is to apply the two-prong approach and interpret “reasonable” and “accommodation” as distinct yet related requirements. In doing so, Title VII functions consistently with not only its purpose, but also the text of the statute and Supreme Court precedent.

* Rachel Schwartz is a J.D. Candidate (2025) at New York University School of Law. This Contribution is a commentary on the problem at the 2024 Robert F. Wagner National Labor and Employment Law Moot Court Competition hosted by New York Law School. One of the questions presented was whether an employer must eliminate the conflict between an employee’s religious practice and essential job duties to satisfy their religious accommodation obligations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. This Contribution distills one side of the argument, and the views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the author’s views.

1. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1).

2. Id. § 2000e(j).

3. Ansonia Bd. of Educ. v. Philbrook, 479 U.S. 60, 70 (1986); see also EEOC v. Ilona of Hung., Inc., 108 F.3d 1569, 1576 (7th Cir. 1997) (adopting Philbrook’s “eliminate the conflict” language); Morrissette-Brown v. Mobile Infirmary Med. Ctr., 506 F.3d 1317, 1322 (11th Cir. 2007) (same); Groff v. DeJoy, 35 F.4th 162, 169 (3d Cir. 2022) (same), vacated 600 U.S. 447.

4. See, e.g., Sturgill v. United Parcel Serv., 512 F.3d 1024, 1031 (8th Cir. 2008) (rejecting the “eliminate the conflict” language in Philbrook); see also Tabura v. Kellogg USA, 880 F.3d 544, 551–52 (10th Cir. 2018) (same).

5. Groff, 35 F.4th at 169–70 (quoting Accommodate, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 12 (3d ed. 1993)), vacated 600 U.S. 447.

6. Id.

7. Id. at 170–71.

8. 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et. seq.

9. But see Tabura, 880 F.3d at 551 (suggesting the per se eliminate rule would read “reasonableness” out of the statute).

10. See Smith v. Pyro Mining Co., 827 F.2d 1081, 1088 (6th Cir. 1987) (finding it unreasonable to require an employee to seek their own shift swaps where the employee sincerely believes that it is a sin to induce another to work in their stead on Sundays); see also Cosme v. Henderson, 287 F.3d 152, 160 (2d Cir. 2002) (determining an accommodation may be unreasonable if it “imposes a significant work-related burden on the employee without justification”).

11. 445 F.3d 541, 543–44 (2d Cir. 2006).

12. Id. at 545.

13. Id. at 547–48.

14. Id. at 545 (noting that part-time employment would allow Baker to have Sundays off).

15. Id. (acknowledging that part-time employment could result in less than forty-hour weeks and loss of benefits).

16. Id. at 548 (citing Cosme, 287 F.3d at 160).

17. 15 F.3d 1375, 1379 (6th Cir. 1994).

18. Id.

19. Id.

20. See EEOC v. Firestone Fibers & Textiles Co., 515 F.3d 307, 313 (4th Cir. 2008) (finding the “eliminate the conflict” requirement to be inconsistent with Congressional intent to protect employers’ interests as well as the religious practices of employees).

21. Philbrook, 479 U.S. at 69.

22. See id. (noting that courts have adopted the bilateral cooperation requirement as a means of staying consistent with the goals of Title VII).

23. Firestone Fibers, 515 F.3d at 312–13.

24. Id. at 313.

25. Philbrook, 749 U.S. at 70.

26. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j).

27. 600 U.S. 447, 468 (2023).

28. Id.

29. Id. at 470–71.

30. Id. at 472.