Written by Don Byrd
Last week, the 7th Circuit reversed the dismissal of an employment discrimination case in which a Nigeria-born employee of Heartland Sweeteners was denied time off to participate in burial rites for his father as required by his religious beliefs. The court ruled the employer has responsibilities to understand the breadth of religious exercise, even when as here the employee, Sikiru Adeyeye, did not explicitly refer to religion or faith in requesting accommodation.
From the opinion (citations removed):
Title VII is a remedial statute that we construe liberally in favor of employee protection. Title VII… was written to deal with real communications bewteen employees and managers, and the law expects both to be reasonable. The employee must make the request reasonably clear so as to alert the employer to the fact that the request is motivated by a religious belief. The employer, in turn, must be alert enough to grasp that the request is religious in nature. If the employer is not certain, managers are entitled to ask the employee to clarify the nature of this request.
…
We recognize, of course, that the religious beliefs and practices Adeyeye referred to are not as familiar as beliefs and practices closer to the Modern American mainstream. But the protections of Title VII are not limited to familiar religions. If the managers who considered the request had questions about whether the request was religious, nothing would have prevented them from asking Adeyeye to explain a little more about the nature of his request… The law leaves ample room for dialogue on these matters.
For more, including tips from employers based on this decision, see Jane Ann Himsel’s article at Mondaq.
