Rain or shine … but not Sunday

Gerald Groff doesn’t work on Sundays. The evangelical Christian and former Mennonite missionary believes Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, a day for worship and rest. But when Groff worked as a mail carrier, his employer often asked him to work on Sundays. In 2019, Groff resigned from his job and sued his former employer over religious accommodation violations. Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Groff’s case.

Groff v. DeJoy asks the court to consider the meaning of two words contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act: “undue hardship.” The 1964 federal law bars the government and most private employers from discriminating against employees on account of religion, among other things. It requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for an employee’s religious beliefs unless doing so would cause undue hardship to the employer.

In line with a 1977 Supreme Court ruling in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in May 2022 that the inconvenience posed to Groff’s co-workers fit the definition of “hardship” that Congress had in mind. In the much-criticized Hardison ruling, justices ruled that accommodations requiring more than a de minimis—that is, trivial or minimal—cost meet the undue hardship standard.

Circuit Judge Patty Schwartz extended that ruling. “An employer is not required to accommodate at all costs,” Schwartz wrote for the majority. “Exempting Groff from working on Sundays caused more than a de minimis cost on USPS because it actually imposed on his co-workers, disrupted the workplace and workflow, and diminished employee morale.”

Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman dissented, rejecting any focus on the effect of Groff’s accommodation on other employees. “Title VII requires USPS to show how Groff’s accommodation would harm its business, not merely how it would impact Groff’s co-workers,” wrote Hardiman.

At the Supreme Court this morning, liberal and conservative justices struggled over two hours of arguments with how to replace the de minimis test should they overrule Hardison. No justice seemed ready to embrace either Groff’s argument that employers should have to demonstrate “substantial difficulty or expense” or the government’s argument that the standard should be “substantial cost.”

Justice Samuel Alito showed his dim view of the nearly 50-year-old Hardison ruling in February 2020, when the Supreme Court declined to review lower court rulings upholding Walgreens’ right to fire a Seventh-day Adventist employee over a similar—albeit Saturday—Sabbath accommodation. In an accompanying opinion, Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said the Supreme Court should reconsider the de minimis standard. Yet it was unclear in arguments today what test Alito would suggest instead.

Justice Neil Gorsuch ticked off areas of common ground: Justices seemed to agree that cases like Groff’s are context-specific and that employers should be held to something more than a de minimis accommodation. “I’m glad that we are all ‘kum-ba-yahing’ here,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor quipped, referencing a popular campfire song, but she noted the challenge of applying any standard in workplaces fraught with competing interests.

In Groff’s case, tension between accommodation for employees and effects on co-workers stands out. At first, a supervisor at a larger post office in Quarryville, Pa., accommodated the now 45-year-old postal worker’s convictions, using substitute carriers to take Sunday shifts making Amazon deliveries for the rural Lancaster County post office. Groff picked up an extra route in exchange.

After about a year and an ultimatum from his supervisor, Groff transferred to a smaller post office in nearby Holtwood that had just four carriers, where his beliefs were also initially accommodated. But as demand for Amazon deliveries grew, Groff’s employer again asked him to work Sunday shifts. After being repeatedly disciplined for not showing up for Sunday work, Groff resigned in 2019 and sued the Postal Service for religious discrimination.

“I was willing to work every holiday,” Groff told ABC News in an interview earlier this year. “I was equally as inconvenienced by the Amazon contract as [other employees] were. It was not something I signed up for. It was imposed upon us when they, when the post office, signed that contract.”

Individuals and groups, including religious organizations of all faiths, filed over 40 briefs in support of Groff. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Southern Baptist Convention, Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists, and groups for Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh believers all filed support briefs. Members of Congress and attorneys general of West Virginia, Texas, Florida and 18 other Republican-led states also supported the former mail carrier. Atheist groups, attorneys general in Democratic-led states, and some unions supported the Postal Service.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State said Groff’s religious conviction unfairly burdened nonreligious employees. “This case is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, in a news release. “Christian Nationalist legal groups are litigating cases like this as part of their crusade to secure privilege for those who share their narrow religious beliefs—at the cost of everyone else’s religious freedom.”

Contrary to Laser’s perspective, a brief filed by the Christian Legal Society points to a 2015 Supreme Court ruling that notes Title VII’s protections for religious beliefs of all kinds. “Title VII does not demand mere neutrality” but gives religious practices “favored treatment,” wrote the majority in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc.

“I want to own what I believe and live that out for God,” Groff told ABC News. “I can’t fix what happened to me, but if we could stop that from happening to somebody else, I would consider that a win.”