SCOTUS increases employers’ burden for denying religious accommodations

Employers will now have to show a higher degree of hardship to deny employee requests for religious accommodation. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 29 C.F.R. § 1605.2(b)(1), employers are required to grant employee requests for religious accommodation “unless the employer demonstrates that [the requested] accommodation would result in undue hardship on the conduct of its business.”

On June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously clarified that a religious accommodation only results in undue hardship when “the burden of granting [the] accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.”