TWA Airways v. Hudson (1977) provided a very narrow reading of Title VII’s protections against religious discrimination. According to the decision, private employers are not required to accommodate employees’ religious activities if doing so would require the employer to “incur costs beyond the minimum.” However, the wording of Title VII requires an employer to accommodate an employee’s religious practice unless it would suffer “undue hardship.” On any reading of the text, “exorbitant difficulty” must be more than “minimum cost”.but Hadison Was decided in the bad old days, when textualism wasn’t very important. for decades, Hadison Tensions with Chapter Seven. However, precedents have been set.
2021, Supreme Court reject certificate In two cases seeking reconsideration Hadison. At the time, I speculated that there might be some vehicle problem with those petitions.
Today, the Supreme Court is Grove v. DeJoy. This case expressly requires the Court to reconsider Hadison standard. Two questions were raised:
1. Should this Court disapprove of the above-minimum cost test for denying religious accommodations under Title VII TWA Fives. Hadison432 United States 63 (1977).
2. Whether an employer can demonstrate “undue hardship to the employer’s conduct of business” under Title VII simply by demonstrating that the requested accommodations burden the employee’s co-workers rather than the business itself.
Congratulations to First Liberty Institute and Baker Botts for this grant. The case is due for debate in April. May the “minimum” test go the way of TWA: collapse.
