A Good-Faith Attempt at Defining Reasonable Accommodations After Groff v. DeJoy

The 1972 amendments to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which required employers to reasonably accommodate their employees’ religious beliefs if doing so did not cause an undue burden, did not settle the ongoing debate about balancing an employee’s right to practice their religion with an employer’s right to run their business. One ongoing controversy involves whether an employer can accommodate their employee in such a way that the employee also must compromise on their sincerely-held religious belief. A recent Third Circuit case, Groff v. DeJoy, further added to the circuit split by holding that an employer cannot offer a reasonable accommodation that requires the employee to compromise on their belief—a circuit split which the Supreme Court has yet to resolve, even after it reversed the Third Circuit in Groff. The Third Circuit’s reading of the statute is not in line with the plain meaning of the statute, nor the congressional intent behind such a statute. Instead, the courts should look with an eye toward the good-faith standard in labor law and hold that a reasonable accommodation is one offered by an employer in a good faith attempt to accommodate the employee.