Dive Brief:
- A lawsuit filed in Michigan raises questions about how an employer can balance employees' religious freedoms with employees' sexual orientations, according to HREOnline.
- In the case, Thomas Banks, a Ford Motor Co. engineer, said in a federal lawsuit July that the automaker and an employment services firm both violated his religious freedom when they fired him for posting an anti-gay comment on Ford's website.
- Banks, a self-described Christian, worked at Ford for three years on assignment from Rapid Global Business Solutions, an employment service firm. In July 2014 Banks posted a comment saying, among other things, that Ford has no place promoting sodomy and immoral sexual conduct. Banks also claimed that the Ford Web article on celebrating LGBT inclusinon was an assault on his religious beliefs, according to lawsuit. Ford and Rapid Global Business Solutions fired Banks two weeks after his post. Their reasoning was his comments violated Ford's anti-harassment policy.
Dive Insight:
One legal expert told HRE to expect more litigation along the same lines. "I think there will be a run of lawsuits which will claim that the application of the right of a homosexual couple to marry is an unconstitutional infringement on a person's or business owner's religious freedom," Emilee Boyle Gehling, an attorney with Goosmann Law Firm in Sioux City, Iowa, told HRE.
Aaron R. Gelb, a shareholder with Vedder Price in Chicago, said he sees a number of possibilities playing out, including a "brief spike in claims" from employees who are alleging discrimination for conduct similar to what got Banks fired. "But I do not believe it will be a long-lasting trend," Gelb said in the article.
Katharine Parker, a New York-based partner at Proskauer Rose, said HR executives need to be familiar not just with Title VII, but also EEOC guidelines on reasonable accommodation of religion. She cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch, which involved employer obligation to modify dress and grooming codes as a reasonable accommodation (unless doing so would be an undue hardship). State and local laws may impose broader obligations on employers too, she said.
"Even more importantly, HR executives should provide training to managers to ensure they are aware of the company's legal obligations to reasonably accommodate," Parker added.
