Resource: GROFF v. DEJOY: HARDISON IS DEAD, LONG LIVE HARDISON!

For decades, lower courts and litigators labored under the (mis)impression that the Supreme Court meant what it said in TWA v. Hardison: that an employer can deny a religious accommodation if it imposes anything more than a “de minimis” (or minimal) cost on the employer's business. So understood, Hardison cost countless religious minorities their jobs and allowed this country's largest employers to deny religious accommodations by pointing to the all but trifling administrative burdens of providing such accommodations (like facilitating voluntary shift swaps or permitting religious garb in the workplace). It took 46 years, but the Supreme Court in Groff v. DeJoy finally “clarified” that Hardison's de minimis standard was, in the words of Justice Sotomayor, merely “loose language.” Going forward, this means that lower courts must interpret Title VII's religious accommodation provision--requiring workplace religious accommodations absent “undue hardship”--consistent with the statute's plain textual meaning. Groff therefore corrects Hardison's grave error and helps ensure that all Americans will be treated fairly in the workplace.