AJCommittee Legislative Director Testifies Before Congress To Urge Enactment Of Workplace Religious Freedom Act

American Jewish Committee
Tuesday, 21 October 1997

The American Jewish Committee today urged Congress to promptly enact into law the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA) to ensure that "employers have a meaningful obligation to reasonably accommodate their employees' religious practice."

Richard T. Foltin, AJC's Legislative Director and Counsel, testified today on Religious Freedom in the Workplace before a hearing of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Mr. Foltin also serves as the chairman of the Coalition for Religious Freedom in the Workplace, a broad coalition of nearly thirty religious and civil rights groups that have come together to promote the passage of legislation to strengthen the religious accommodation provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Mr. Foltin applauded the efforts of Senators Coats and Kerry in introducing WRFA. He explained that current civil rights law defines the refusal of an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious practice as a form of religious discrimination, unless such accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer. "But," he explained, "this standard has been interpreted by the courts in a fashion that place little restraint on an employer's ability to refuse to provide religious accommodation, needlessly forcing upon religiously observant employees a conflict between the dictates of religious conscience and the requirements of the workplace.

"The effort to safeguard religious liberty and fight against religious discrimination is one that should, and must, bring together Americans from a broad range of political and religious persuasions," Mr. Foltin stated.

"For many religiously observant Americans the greatest peril to their ability to carry out their religious faiths, on a day­to­day basis, may come from employers. Employers who will not make reasonable accommodation for observance of the Sabbath and other holy days. Employers who refuse to make a reasonable accommodation to employees who must wear religiously­required garb, such as a yarmulke, a turban or clothing that meets modesty requirements. The WRFA is a response to the failure of the Supreme Court, and of lower courts following the high court's lead, to give due regard to the importance of accommodation of religious practice in a heterogeneous society.

"Since the problems in this area turn on judicial interpretation of legislation, rather than constitutional doctrine, they are susceptible to correction by the Congress." In this respect, and for other reasons that distinguish it, Mr. Foltin continued, the WRFA is not susceptible to "the issues that led the Supreme Court to strike down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act" earlier

this year. In addition, "amendment of the law so as to afford meaningful protections for religiously observant employees is consistent" with the Constitutional prohibition on government establishment of religion."

"Enactment of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act will constitute an important step towards ensuring that all members of society, whatever their religious beliefs and practices, will be protected from an invidious form of discrimination. The refusal of an employer, absent undue hardship, to provide reasonable accommodation of a religious practice should be seen as a form of religious discrimination. And religious discrimination should be treated fully as seriously as any other form of discrimination that stands between Americans and equal employment opportunities."

Mr. Foltin concluded by stating, "It is fitting that this hearing is held on one of the intermediate days of the Jewish holiday of Succoth, the concluding festival of the holiday season that includes the better known festivals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As is the case with those latter holidays, there are days of Succoth (not including today) on which work is traditionally proscribed. Too often a season that should be one of joy becomes, for Jews who observe the proscription on work, a period of anxiety and, sometimes, blighted careers as they face the possibility of losing their livelihood for following the dictates of their faith.

"Perhaps we will come to look back on the hearing held today, in the midst of the Jewish holiday season, as the harbinger of a day when the civil rights laws of this great nation will give due regard to the religious diversity that is one of its marks of pride."

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