ACLJ Sends Demand Letter to Ashley Furniture After Employee Is Forced To Forgo Church Attendance To Comply With New Policy

The ACLJ has taken action on behalf of another employee who was forced to choose between keeping her job and practicing her sincerely held religious beliefs protected under federal law.

The ACLJ just sent a demand letter informing Ashley Furniture of its obligation to allow our client to attend church services on Sunday before reporting to work. As we explain in our letter, federal law requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs/practices of their employees. Most of the time, employers simply lack the knowledge of Title VII and their employees’ rights to request religious accommodations when a workplace requirement conflicts with the employee’s religious practice (e.g., attending church).

Our client works at an Ashley Furniture store in Fort Worth, TX. In the four or more years she has worked for Ashley Furniture, she has been able to attend church and still report to work on time before the store opens for business at 12:00 p.m. on Sundays. Recently, however, the store in Fort Worth implemented a new policy requiring employees, including our client, to report to work one hour earlier to attend mandatory meetings beginning at 11:00 a.m. Upon being notified of this new policy, our client informed the employer that this scheduling change would prevent her from attending her church service and requested an accommodation. The employer – while acknowledging that attending church was important to our client – nonetheless informed her that no exceptions would be made and that she would be required to adhere to this new policy and report to work an hour earlier. Since the new policy has gone into effect, our client has also been written up at least twice for arriving late because of church.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from discrimination on the basis of religion. Once an employer is aware of the conflict between a workplace requirement and an employee’s religious belief or practice, the employer is required to make reasonable accommodations to those practices unless doing so poses an “undue hardship” on the employer. As the Supreme Court recently made clear in Groff v. DeJoy, an employer cannot deny an employee’s religious accommodation simply because it would result in “de minimis cost” to the employer. Instead, the request must substantially interfere with the operations of the employer. Notably, as federal courts have acknowledged, even when an employer applies a policy to all employees, that does not lessen the discriminatory effect on a specific employee’s religious beliefs.

In this case, prior to this scheduling change, the employer did not require employees to arrive earlier on Sundays, and our client could attend church without having to miss Sunday services. Customers do not arrive at the store until 12:00 p.m. These facts suggest that granting an accommodation to our client would not substantially interfere with the employer’s operations.

We continue to fight for the religious liberties of both private and public employees. Employers must be held accountable when their actions violate federal law. Now that the ACLJ has sent our demand letter, we will be prepared to take further legal action if the employer does not quickly grant our client a reasonable religious accommodation.