Religious Accommodation Review: Nine Questions the Morning It Lands

The library already has an ADA playbook and a pregnancy morning-of. Teams still run religion through those, or through a cost test the Court retired. This is the morning-of review. It is not those pages. It is not a sermon.

1. What did they actually ask for?

   The Slack is almost never the word “accommodation.” It is “I can’t work Sundays.” It is “I need twenty minutes at 1:00.” It is a beard that appeared after a policy that assumes a clean shave, or a head covering a manager has never seen on the floor.

   That is the request. They do not need a form, a denomination, or the name of a statute. Once a manager knows a work rule collides with a religious practice, the clock is running. Write what they said, in their words, before anyone turns it into a debate.

2. Can you grant it this morning?

   These are the usual first tries. They are common, not guaranteed. Most of them do not need a committee or a letter from a pastor. Stop if a real safety, health, or security rule is in the way — that is question 6:

   • A voluntary shift swap or a schedule tweak around a Sabbath or holy day.
   • A short prayer or meditation break the line can absorb.
   • A head covering, a beard, a necklace, an ash mark.
   • Use of a quiet room that already exists.

   A Sunday off that sits in an inbox until the Sunday has passed is a missed Sunday, whatever you decide later. Confer promptly. Do not treat a later yes as if the conflict never happened.

   A formal request is not required. Magic words are not required. If you know they need a change for a religious reason, or you are acting because you think they will, you have the request.

3. Are you running ADA intake on a religion request?

   Do not send the disability questionnaire. Religion is not a disability, and the packet will prove you treated it as one. You do not need a diagnosis, a prognosis, or a medical exam. You do not need to know whether a church “requires” the practice. You need to know what practice collides with what rule.

   Ordinarily assume the belief is sincere. Ask for more only if you have an objective reason to doubt, written down: marked inconsistency with their own practice, a timing that follows a secular ask for the same benefit, or some other fact that is not “I have never heard of this faith.” A pastor’s letter is not the default. Their own explanation can be enough. A clergy letter is one option, not the form you demand.

   If the first move is the ADA medical packet, stop and start over. Use the ADA playbook when you actually have a disability. Do not start there because the request involves a belief. If a medical condition is also in the room, that is a different statute. Do not use religion as the reason to skip it, or the ADA packet as the intake for religion.

4. What other claim just walked in with it?

   This statute asks whether you can change the job so they can keep the practice. Unequal treatment is a different question under the same statute. State law may be in the room even when this statute is not.

   In the room	The question it asks	Reach
   This statute (accommodate)	Can you change the job so they can keep the practice?	15 or more employees
   This statute (unequal treatment)	Did you treat them worse because of the religion?	15 or more employees
   Michigan ELCRA	Did you discriminate because of religion?	Michigan: 1 or more employees
   Ohio Ch. 4112	Did you discriminate because of religion?	Ohio: 4 or more employees

   Michigan and Ohio prohibit religious discrimination. Neither statute copies this statute’s accommodation clause on its face. Michigan: do not invent an ELCRA accommodation duty; none is confirmed in a published holding. Ohio: the statute is a discrimination statute, and intermediate courts have still applied a Title VII-style accommodation analysis. Do not tell a four-person shop there is no duty. Do not ignore the discrimination claim that still exists at shops too small for this statute.

   Paste-ready handbook language for those Michigan and Ohio religion rules is in the Michigan handbook addendum and the Ohio handbook addendum.

   A public employer may have a First Amendment problem on top of this. A religious employer may have a statutory exemption or a ministerial-exception defense. Get counsel there. Do not brief either from this page.

5. Are you about to hide them, or send them home?

   Putting the hijab in the back because a customer “might be uncomfortable” is not an accommodation. It is segregation because of religion. The same is true of a beard moved off the floor, or a kippah told to stay in the warehouse. Customer taste is not a defense.

   Leave, a write-up, or a point on the attendance card is not the default. It is what you do when nothing else works, or when they asked for the time off. “Work Sunday or don’t work here” is often the sentence that turns a schedule ask into a charge. If a swap, a different shift, or a different task would keep them working, offering the door first is the decision a jury will remember.

6. What does this job actually require?

   “We’ve always staffed Sundays this way” is not what this job requires. Name what matters this month: the hours, the license, the safety rule, the client-facing piece. Test the ask against those, not against the unofficial culture of the role.

   A no-beard rule written for a respirator is a safety fact. A no-beard rule written for a look is a preference. Customer taste is not a safety fact. Coworker discomfort with the religion is not a safety fact.

   If another option would let them keep the practice without a substantial burden on this business, you have to look at it. The only options are not “full policy” or “go home.”

7. If you’re saying no, what’s the hardship in one sentence?

   A supervisor saying the line can’t spare them is a fact to check, not a conclusion. Hardship means the burden of granting the change would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of this particular business: its nature, its size, its operating cost, and the practical impact of this ask. More than a trifle is not the test. That phrase, as people use it, does not suffice.

   Write the sentence: what it costs, whom it breaks, why a lesser change fails. Overtime for someone else is a fact to price, not the end of the analysis. You have to look at other options. Coworker grumbling about the religion, or about the idea of accommodating it, is not hardship. Impacts on coworkers count only if they go on to affect the conduct of the business.

   If you cannot write that sentence without wincing, you do not have a no yet. You have an inconvenience.

8. Who is deciding, and who is just being told?

   The manager does not get to freelance a no, and the whole team does not need a religious story. HR or counsel should see anything that is not one of the usual first tries. Tell the manager what to do. Tell colleagues only what they need in order to work around the change. The faith is not a staff announcement.

   Talk to them, not only about them. Ask what they need. Try something. Write down what you tried. A Sabbath does not wait for a thirty-day file.

9. What goes in the file — and what doesn’t?

   Date of the ask, what they requested, what you offered, what they chose, and why anything was refused. Not a narrative about whether the faith is “real.” Not a manager’s theory about whether they are “using religion.” Not an email chain that debates the theology.

   The file should read like you solved a workplace problem. If it reads like you managed a problem employee, rewrite it. If you would not send this email if their lawyer already had it, do not send it.

Use note

This is a morning-of review for in-house counsel and the HR lead who will print it. It is general information, not legal advice, and not a substitute for the statute — Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j) — the Court’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (2023), or counsel on the edge cases. This statute reaches employers with 15 or more employees.

The ADA still governs disability. Unequal treatment is still a separate claim under this statute. Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act and Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4112 still govern discrimination because of religion at shops this statute may not reach; Michigan has no published holding that copies this statute’s accommodation duty. Ohio courts have applied that analysis anyway. Get counsel before you tell a small shop there is no duty. Some older EEOC pages, including Compliance Manual Section 12 (2021) and 29 C.F.R. Part 1605, still describe hardship as more than a trifle. Groff controls.

Religious corporations, associations, educational institutions, and societies have a statutory exemption for certain religion-based employment decisions. The ministerial exception can bar some claims against religious institutions. This page is written for ordinary employers. Do not use it to brief those defenses.

Primary sources: 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j) · Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (2023) · EEOC, Religious Discrimination · EEOC, Fact Sheet: Religious Accommodations in the Workplace · EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 575 U.S. 768 (2015) (motivating factor; formal request not required) · MCL 37.2201(a), 37.2202 · Ohio R.C. 4112.01(A)(2), 4112.02(A)