Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 30, 2023 / 15:50 pm
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in favor of a Christian postal worker’s religious freedom rights in Thursday’s Groff v. DeJoy decision.
In a statement released Thursday, the USCCB said that the ruling “breathed life back into a major civil rights law meant to prevent discrimination by employers against people of faith in the workplace.”
In its ruling, written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court said federal law requires an employer that denies an employee a religious accommodation must show that the burden of the accommodation would result in substantial increased costs.
The court rejected the “de minimis” standard that interpreted Article VII of the Civil Rights Act to allow employers to deny workers’ religious accommodation requests if they presented more than a “trivial cost.”