Courts wrestle with religious accommodation disputes, including teacher’s suit over school policy on transgender students’ preferred names

In a changing religious liberty landscape, even a half-dozen years may not be enough to resolve claims for religious accommodation from federal rules and employer policies.

In August, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resurrected a closely watched and long-running religious accommodation lawsuit called Kluge v. Brownsburg, deciding it needs more fact-finding.

The case involves a music teacher – John Kluge — who objected to the Brownsburg school district’s requirement that he refer to students using the first names in the school’s database, including of transgender students who had their names changed in the database. Initially, Kluge reached an accommodation agreement with the school that allowed him to use students’ last names, but it led to complaints that transgender students in his class felt insulted, disrespected, isolated and targeted. He was eventually dismissed.

Back in 2023, the appeals court ruled in favor of the school district, rejecting the claim that Kluge’s dismissal violated his religious liberty rights. 

Now, by a 2-1 vote, the appeals court held that the lower court erred by deciding in favor of the school district – instead, this new ruling says, the lower court should have conducted a factual inquiry into whether the school district would suffer undue hardship if they provided the accommodation allowing Kluge to refer to students by their last names.

The earlier 2023 decision was prior to the U.S. Supreme Court revising the “undue hardship” standard in a 2023 ruling, Groff v. DeJoy. The appeals court now says that, under the Groff standard, the emotional harms suffered by students and the disruption to the learning environment may not be enough to invalidate the last-name-only accommodation requested by Kluge, and more fact-finding is necessary.

Here is an excerpt from the opinion:

[T]here is insufficient evidence to conclude that calling students by their last names, without more, would inflict emotional harm on a reasonable person. Thus, even assuming [the transgender students who testified] subjectively felt emotional harm from Kluge’s actions, those feelings do not rise to the level of an undue hardship on Brownsburg’s purported mission to create a safe and inclusive learning environment for students. The school also claims the last-name-only accommodation “disrupted the learning environment.” If true, we have little doubt that a significant disruption to students’ learning is an undue hardship on a school’s business. But whether that significant disruption existed is disputed.

The case now returns to the trial court to resolve factual disputes regarding the undue hardship issue, as well as the question of the sincerity of the teacher’s religious claims.

In other religious accommodation news, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reopened a religious discrimination suit regarding a vaccine mandate, also returning it to the trial court. Wright v. Honeywell International, Inc. was brought by a Honeywell employee who refused to comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.  The trial court first dismissed the claims on the grounds that they were not based on sincere religious beliefs, but the appeals court disagreed. “’Bona fide religious beliefs,” the court held, “include ‘moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.’”

Last, there is a case back in the courts about covering contraception in health care plans. A federal district court in Pennsylvania invalidated two rules promulgated during the first Trump administration broadening the definition of employers entitled to an accommodation that allows them to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage in health care plans if they have religious or moral objections to it. The rule was “arbitrary and capricious,” the court held, and thus failed to conform to the Administrative Procedures Act.

The defendants – which include the Little Sisters of the Poor — announced they will appeal to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Little Sisters of the Poor will sound familiar to many readers – a religious nonprofit organization that provides health care to employees, it was one of the groups challenging the religious exemption provided to them in the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. Their case was consolidated with others as Zubik v. Burwell and made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Stay tuned.