Dive Brief:
- Mercy Health St. Mary’s, a hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it did not allow a worker a religious exemption from getting the flu vaccine, despite having an exemption process in place, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged in a press release May 1.
- According to the complaint filed April 28, Mercy Health had offered the worker a job as a business office coordinator in 2019, contingent on a pre-employment physical and getting a flu shot. The worker informed the hospital he would not get the shot due to conflicts with his religious beliefs, but after he submitted an accommodation request, the hospital “denied [plaintiff’s] application for such exemption because it determined that his religious beliefs, as articulated in his application, were insufficient.” The hospital did not explain the reason for insufficiency or provide an opportunity to supplement with other information, EEOC said, and eventually withdrew its job offer.
- “Instead of rejecting the applicant’s religious accommodation request outright, Mercy Health should have followed up with him if it had questions,” Dale Price, senior trial attorney in the EEOC’s Detroit field office, said in the agency’s release. “If it had questions, Mercy Health could have spoken with this individual before making a decision to determine the contours of his religious beliefs, rather than prematurely determining that his beliefs were not genuine.”
Dive Insight:
Employers sometimes eye religious accommodation requests with some skepticism, struggling to determine whether religious beliefs are “sincerely held.”
The issue gained renewed relevance following the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, as employers adopted vaccine requirements and some employees pushed back. As recently as March, according to a University of South Florida analysis, one-third of Americans said they are still not confident in the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
While the EEOC stated that employers could require employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine shortly after its development, it noted the disability and religious exemptions employers would still need to consider. However, EEOC also noted allowances for “direct threat scenarios,” which would allow employers to bar unvaccinated workers from the workplace if they would pose a substantial risk to themselves or others.
The “direct threat scenario” would not likely have applied in the Mercy Health case, however, as the EEOC pointed out in its lawsuit that a “flu-vaccine policy was available to accommodate [the plaintiff].” Rather, the case appears to hinge — at least in the EEOC’s estimation — on the sincerity of the religious belief.
How can an employer determine employees’ religious sincerity? The EEOC provided guidance, last updated in July, to help businesses navigate this question as COVID-19 exemption requests rose. Employees don’t need to use any “magic words” when making the request, the agency said. And generally, employers should believe workers regarding their stated sincerity — unless they have evidence otherwise.
“If an employer has an objective basis for questioning either the religious nature or the sincerity of a particular belief, the employer would be justified in making a limited factual inquiry and seeking additional supporting information,” the agency said.
According to EEOC, Mercy Health erred in rejecting the plaintiff’s application outright and failing to follow up with questions or a request for more information.
Mercy Health did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
