“[Title VII] thus requires that an employer, short of undue hardship, make reasonable accommodations to the religious needs of its employees.” (emphasis added)
How later courts described this case
- “[Title VII] thus requires that an employer, short of undue hardship, make reasonable accommodations to the religious needs of its employees.” (emphasis added)
- finding the employer had violated Title VII given its “absolute lack of effort at accommodation”
- if an employee requests to observe the Sabbath, the employer must attempt to accommodate
- plaintiff allegedly terminated for refusing to work on his Sabbath
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*120 WILKINSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in Judge Hall’s fine opinion. I agree, for reasons noted in his opinion, that the employer in this case could have done more to accommodate Dean’s religious beliefs without undue hardship to itself.
I write only to emphasize that the statutory terms “reasonably accommodate” and “undue hardship” are variable ones. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j). The fact that Sunday work was temporary here should not obscure the fact that many enterprises must regularly operate on Sundays and other days of religious observance. Hospitals must serve the sick every day, and airlines must attempt to maintain safe and prompt flight schedules. The dangers police and fire departments were established to combat do not disappear on Sundays or any other day.
The Supreme Court emphasized in Har-dison that employers are not required to abandon seniority systems or to incur substantial costs in order to satisfy the requirements of § 701(j). 432 U.S. at 83-84, 97 S.Ct. at 2276-77. Nor, in my judgment, does that statute require an employer to jeopardize safe and effective service to the public. As Judge Hall notes in footnotes 4 and 5 of his opinion, there were options available to the employer here that did not involve such costs or risks, and for that reason I concur in his opinion.