9th Circuit weighs in on religious objection to loyalty oath

April 2023 employment law letter

Authors:

Mark Schickman, Schickman Law

A devout Jehovah’s witness refused to take the loyalty oath demanded by the California Office of the State Controller and sought a carve out for her beliefs in the supremacy of god and in pacifism. Did she have a prayer of keeping her job?

You’ve got to serve somebody

The California Constitution requires all public employees—except those “as may be by law exempted”—to swear or affirm to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and to “bear true faith and allegiance” to the constitutions.

In 2016, Briana Bolden-Hardge began working for the California Franchise Tax Board without first signing a loyalty oath. The next year, however, she applied to the California Office of the State Controller and was offered a higher-paying position. The controller’s office asked her to take California’s loyalty oath, and she requested an accommodation to sign the oath with an addendum specifying her allegiance was first and foremost to God and that she wouldn’t take up arms. Her proposed addendum read:

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