According to Groff, he was repeatedly harassed and intimidated by his bosses because of his request to not work on Sundays.
In Tuesday’s First Liberty Institute interview, Groff claimed: “[My boss once] cornered me out of my car as I was loading outside the post office and he basically said, ‘The post office is thinking of making an example of you,’ and so I lived from that point on in fear that today could be the day that I come to work and they drop the bomb on me that I could be fired.”
After facing escalating disciplinary action and the sense that he was on the brink of termination, Groff resigned from his position with the postal service in 2019 rather than waiting to be fired.
Groff sued USPS in the federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, saying his right to practice his religion had been violated.
Why this case matters
This case is about more than just Groff. Whatever ruling the Supreme Court issues will have a major impact on the religious rights of employees across the country.
Legal experts believe that Groff v. Dejoy allows the Supreme Court an opportunity to revisit the question of what religious rights employees have in the workplace, including whether Christians could be allowed to take Sundays off to worship God.
Until now, something called “the Hardison standard” has given employers a legal precedent to point to, that any religious requests employees raise that present more than a trivial cost do not need to be accommodated. That could now be changed by the Supreme Court.
What is the ‘Hardison standard?’
In its ruling against Groff, the 3rd Circuit Court applied the precedent set in TWA v. Hardison, a 1977 Supreme Court case that posited employers were not obligated to accommodate workers’ religious requests if they posed more than a “de minimis,” or trivial cost.
According to the religious liberty law firm Becket, under the Hardison precedent 86% of workplace religious accommodation requests are denied, and “Hardison’s ‘de minimis test’ has been used by large companies to deny even the most basic of religious accommodations for their employees — especially employees with minority religious beliefs.”
(Story continues below)
What’s going on with the Supreme Court?
In recent years the Supreme Court has made some significant decisions in favor of religious liberty.
In June 2022, SCOTUS ruled in favor of a high school football coach’s First Amendment right to pray on the field in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.
Another June 2022 SCOTUS decision in Carson v. Makin established that a Maine policy barring students attending religious schools from receiving student aid violated the First Amendment.
There was no legal or procedural requirement for SCOTUS to take up Groff v. Dejoy.
Because the Supreme Court could have allowed the lower courts’ decisions to stand but chose to take up Groff’s appeal anyway, many legal experts believe that SCOTUS may want to use this case to do away with the Hardison standard and reestablish the rights of religious workers and employers.
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God or your job? Supreme Court to hear case of postal worker who refused to work Sundays - Catholic News Agency
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