There’s A[nother] New Accommodation Standard in Town: Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects De Minimis Cost Test for Title VII Religious Accommodations, and Confirms Limitations on Coworker Impact Evidence in Undue Hardship Analysis
As we wrote earlier this year, the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider a case challenging the standard by which an employer may refuse to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs. Since the Court’s 1977 decision in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, many lower courts have held that employers could deny a requested religious accommodation if providing it would result in “more than a de minimis cost.” For years, critics have argued that the de minimis cost test does not appear anywhere in the language of Title VII, and effectively eliminates the statute’s protections against religious discrimination. On June 29, 2023, a unanimous Supreme Court agreed.
