Victory for Religious Freedom: USPS Backtracks, Grants Our Client Religious Accommodation To Go to Church on Sunday

At the ACLJ, we’re celebrating a monumental victory for religious liberty in the workplace! After months of intense legal battle, the United States Postal Service finally agreed to honor our client’s religious convictions by exempting him from Sunday work requirements. Because of the pressure we put on them at the EEO, the Postal Service agreed to accommodate our client’s religious beliefs by removing him from the Sunday work schedule entirely. This isn’t just a bureaucratic decision – it’s an acknowledgment that religious liberty remains a foundational American right that cannot be casually dismissed by government employers.

The Religious Accommodation Request

Our client isn’t just a dedicated Rural Carrier Associate at USPS facilities in rural Illinois – he’s a man of profound faith whose Christian beliefs guide every aspect of his life. For him, Sunday isn’t merely a preference for a day off; it’s a sacred observance deeply rooted in biblical teaching that he believes calls believers to work six days and keep the seventh as a holy Sabbath.

When the Postal Service began requiring Sunday deliveries in January 2023, our client faced an impossible choice: Violate his deeply held religious convictions or risk his livelihood. Being forced to sort, load, and deliver packages on the Lord’s Day represented a direct violation of his core religious beliefs – the very sort of government-imposed burden on religious exercise that the ACLJ was established to fight against.

The Battle Against Religious Discrimination

The road to victory wasn’t easy. With his livelihood and religious conscience at stake, our client reached out to the ACLJ for help. On June 11, 2024, our legal team sent a powerful demand letter to his postmaster at his post office, detailing the constitutional and statutory protections for our client’s religious beliefs and requesting a formal accommodation.

The next day, June 12, 2024, the postmaster called our client and verbally granted his religious accommodation request, agreeing to remove him from Sunday work “until his case was settled.” Our client was relieved to finally have his religious rights recognized – but that relief would prove short-lived. What happened next reveals the hostility that people of faith too often face in today’s workplace.

Almost immediately after securing his religious accommodation, our client began experiencing what appeared to be calculated retaliation from postal management. Suddenly, he was scheduled to work additional shifts after completing his regular route – a burdensome practice that had previously only occurred during rare emergencies. Now it became his regular schedule, week after week. Our client’s co-workers noticed the abnormal treatment, though none dared speak up against management.

Just three months later, in September 2024, the postmaster abruptly rescinded our client’s accommodation, claiming staffing shortages as justification – despite the fact that the office had doubled its Rural Carrier Associates from two to four, with a fifth in training. The hypocrisy was striking: They could accommodate his faith when they had fewer staff but supposedly couldn’t when they had more. This blatant inconsistency exposed the true nature of the decision – not a legitimate operational constraint but apparent hostility toward religious accommodation. Management also cited the agreement between USPS and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association regarding Sunday work rotation. They claimed grievances had been filed because of our client’s religious accommodation – but no union contract supersedes religious rights.

Fighting for True Accommodation

Instead of maintaining his full religious accommodation, the Postal Service offered our client what they framed as a “compromise” – allowing our client to start work at noon on Sundays and only every other week. This completely missed the point of his religious objection. His personal Christian beliefs don’t teach that Sunday work is acceptable if it starts after church or happens less frequently – it teaches that Sunday is to be kept holy, period.

Our client even identified willing co-workers who could voluntarily cover his Sunday shifts without disruption to mail service, yet for months management stubbornly refused this commonsense solution that would have cost them nothing.

The EEO

Through it all, our client never wavered. Faced with this blatant violation of his religious rights, our client again turned to the ACLJ. We immediately helped him file a formal EEO complaint against the Postal Service, documenting the discrimination he faced and the pretextual nature of management’s justifications. With the ACLJ at his side, our client filed an EEO complaint seeking to be removed from the Sunday work schedule permanently, in accordance with his religious beliefs.

This case highlights the ongoing challenges people of faith face in the workplace. This outcome affirms the protections guaranteed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for sincerely held religious beliefs when doing so doesn’t create genuine undue hardship. In our client’s case, with multiple other employees available and willing to work Sundays, there was clearly no legitimate reason his religious accommodation could not be maintained.

Finally, as a result of our EEO complaint in administrative court, the Postal Service has given in and agreed to recognize and respect our client’s rights. Specifically, he was given a new religious accommodation to allow him to take Sundays off in accordance with his faith. His post office has finally hired additional employees who will be able to work on Sundays, and by correcting these scheduling issues, our client’s rights will no longer be violated. While this accommodation took far too long, it is welcome news that they have finally recognized our client’s religious rights.

The Fight Continues

Though the USPS has granted our clients accommodation, we are still fighting alongside him to ensure that every USPS employee has the right to go to church. We are continuing through the EEO process to hopefully obtain a broad ruling that will prevent the USPS from ever discriminating against people of faith keeping the Sabbath holy.

The Broader Impact

This victory resonates far beyond one postal facility in Illinois. In an era when religious freedoms are increasingly under assault, our client’s case establishes a powerful precedent that Title VII protections have real teeth. In America, no one should ever have to choose between their faith and their livelihood. When government agencies or employers force that choice, the ACLJ stands ready to defend religious freedom with every legal tool at our disposal.

At the ACLJ, this victory fuels our passion to fight even harder for religious liberty. We know that for every employee who comes forward, countless others suffer in silence, fearful of standing up against powerful government agencies or corporations that disregard their faith.

We pledge to continue standing in the gap for these Americans, bringing the full force of constitutional law against those who would marginalize religious belief. Whether before EEO tribunals, federal agencies, or the Supreme Court itself, we will not rest while religious freedom is threatened.