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Does an Employer Have to Accommodate Employee Proselytizing?
These cases present situations in which the employee is doing his or her job, and is not asking the employer for any special treatment. Instead, the employee, as mandated by the employee’s religious convictions, is engaging in speech which may offend other employees. Does an employer have a right, or for that matter an obligation, to regulate the speech of an employee so that other employees are not offended?
Generally, the answer depends on the degree of offense caused to the other employees, but the test remains a subjective one. For instance, in one case, an employee took a religious vow to at all times wear an anti-abortion button depicting an unborn fetus, which co-workers found offensive and disruptive. There was no question that the employee was motivated by sincere religious beliefs, and the court ruled that the employer’s “reasonable accommodation” obligation was triggered as a result. However, the court also found that the employer’s proposed solution – covering the button at work – was reasonable since, otherwise, the employer would be forced to allow the employee to “impose her beliefs on the rest of the workforce.”
A very recent case dealt with a Hewlett Packard employee who objected to HP’s diversity campaign, particularly as it applied to gays -- the employee fervently believed, on religious grounds, that homosexuality is a sin. Consequently, in the hope of convincing gays in the HP workplace to repent and be saved, the employee posted anti-gay, purposefully-hurtful religious texts in his cubicle that were large enough to be read by those in an adjoining corridor. The texts specifically violated HP’s efforts to promote respect and tolerance in its workplace. In response, HP engaged in a textbook-perfect effort to strike a middle-ground accommodation with the employee – it acknowledged the sincerity of his beliefs, it allowed him to park a car in the company lot with an anti-gay bumper sticker, and it did not protest his anti-gay and anti-HP letters to the editor of the local newspaper. HP’s well-trained managers confined themselves to explaining the HP diversity program, and requiring that the employee treat fellow employees with respect by removing the posters and abiding by the company’s anti-harassment policy, which was uniformly applied to all employees. HP was vindicated in court.
What about email templates with religious messages in the margin? What about voice mail messages with religious overtones? Must an employer allow employees those freedoms? These decisions remain to be made, but they will no doubt turn on such factors as the particulars of what the messages say, the make up of the work force, the employer’s established policies, and the employer’s efforts to strike a middle ground.
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