Workplace Vaccine Requirements Lead to Jump in EEOC Religious Discrimination Charges

Recently, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released its Charge Statistics for the 2022 Fiscal Year (FY). The EEOC received 73,485 new discrimination charges in FY 2022. This total represents a steep 19.8% increase from FY 2021, when the EEOC received 61,331 new discrimination charges. 

Workplace COVID-19 vaccine requirements, many of which were implemented as employers requested or required employees to return to in-person work, played a key role in this significant increase. This included an inordinate number of charges alleging discrimination on the basis of religion.

Since FY 1997, the EEOC had never received more than 4,200 religious discrimination charges in a given year. Moreover, religious discrimination charges never accounted for more than 4.2% of total discrimination charges filed. In FY 2022, 13,814 religious discrimination charges accounted for 18.8% of the total discrimination charges filed in FY 2022. This was a 554% increase over the number of religious discrimination charges filed in FY 2021. 

The EEOC is tasked with enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. Title VII prevents employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of a number of protected characteristics, including religion. Under the statute, an employer is required to offer reasonable workplace accommodations for an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs, practice, or observance, as long as accommodations do not expose the employer to an undue hardship. The recent Supreme Court decision in Groff v. DeJoy reshaped the undue hardship standard with respect to the burden an employer must show in order to deny a religious accommodation request. To show an undue hardship, an employer must establish that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business. The showing of an undue hardship justifies an employer’s denial of an accommodation under Title VII. Given that this new standard presently lacks clarity due to its recentness, the struggle between employee rights to religious freedom and undue hardship on employers will likely continue as employer-mandated or requested vaccinations for workers are sure to become more commonplace following the pandemic.

In its updated COVID-19 Guidance, the EEOC offers recommendations to help employers who receive vaccine-related reasonable accommodation requests to ensure their actions comply with Title VII. Upon receipt of a vaccine-related request, the employer should process it according to the same legal standards as any other type of reasonable accommodation request. Generally, the employer should assume that an employee’s request is based on a sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance. However, if the employer becomes aware of facts that provide an objective basis for questioning the religious nature or sincerity of the religious belief, practice, or observance, the employer may request more supporting information from the employee.

Employers should consider all possible reasonable accommodations for employees who are prevented from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine due to a religious belief, practice, or observance. As a best practice, the EEOC suggests an employer who plans to introduce a new COVID-19 vaccination policy or retain an existing policy of the same nature notify all employees that the employer will consider reasonable accommodation for religion on an individualized basis.

Buchanan’s team of labor and employment attorneys stands ready to offer assistance with all accommodation policy-related issues that may arise at your workplace.