A health care center in Texas was ordered to pay $375,000 to 10 former employees following a lawsuit filed against it for religious discrimination and harassment.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s lawsuit alleges that the health care company conducted mandatory meetings each morning that involved prayer and reading of biblical verses, “including discussion of how those principles applied to the employees’ personal lives.”

An employee who followed the principles of Buddhism asked her employer several times to be excused from attending the religious portion of the daily staff meeting as a reasonable accommodation for her religion, but the employer denied her request.

The company terminated the employee just one day after she renewed her request to be excused from the biblical portions of the meeting.

The suit also alleged that the health care company subjected employees to a hostile work environment based on religion by imposing religious practices and beliefs on them. The suit further alleged that some employees were terminated after expressing objections to the required religious practices.

In addition to monetary relief and mandatory training, the judgment “also prohibits the defendants from requiring or pressuring any employee to engage in religious-based activities, including meetings, social events, conversations, and prayers.”

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits religious discrimination and harassment, including requiring employees to accept their employer’s religious practices and beliefs as a condition of employment.

“These former employees were asked to begin every day with a discussion of biblical principles and how those principles applied to their work and personal lives. This is not an activity that any employer can mandate,” according to the EEOC’s announcement of the judgment.

Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that certain positions within religious organizations are exempt from the purview of discrimination laws because the First Amendment protects the right of religious institutions “to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.”

This unique and limited exception is known as the “ministerial exemption” and was reaffirmed in a pair of cases before the court in 2020.

All other organizations that employ 15 or more employees must provide a workplace free from religious discrimination or harassment and must also provide reasonable accommodations for an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs, unless doing so would create an undue hardship.

Earlier this year, the EEOC updated its Compliance Manual on Religious Discrimination, reinforcing that the term “religion” is a broad term and not necessarily limited to certain traditional religions, “but also religious beliefs that are new, uncommon, not part of a formal church or sect, only subscribed to by a small number of people, or that seem illogical or unreasonable to others.”

The EEOC identified in its manual six specific practices that violate Title VII’s prohibition on religious discrimination:

• Treating applicants or employees differently by taking an adverse action based on their religious beliefs, observances or practices (or lack of religious beliefs, observances or practices) in any aspect of employment.
• Taking adverse action motivated by a desire to avoid accommodating a religious belief, observance or practice that the employer knew or suspected may be needed and would not pose an undue hardship.
• Denying a needed reasonable accommodation sought for an applicant’s or employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs, observances or practices if an accommodation will not impose an undue hardship on the conduct of the business.
• Intentionally limiting, segregating or classifying employees based on the presence or absence of religious beliefs, observances or practices or enforcing a neutral rule that would have the same effect and cannot be justified by business necessity.
• Subjecting employees to harassment because of their religious beliefs, observances or practices (or lack of religious beliefs, observances or practices).
• Retaliating against an applicant or employee who has opposed discrimination on the basis of religion, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding or hearing regarding discrimination on the basis of religion.

Anyone working in a capacity to make decisions about employment or who is in a position of authority (for example, judges, hearing officers, teachers and inspectors) should use caution when closing their salutation on emails or other communications with a message that clearly identifies a religious preference or belief.

Such a communication compromises the sender’s ability to demonstrate objectivity, and opens the person up to scrutiny, and in the employment setting legal liability.

The compliance manual and more information can be found at EEOC.gov.