About Religious Discrimination According to Title VII via the U.S. EEOC

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that is responsible for protecting the rights of employees by implementing anti-discrimination laws. Particularly, it upholds one of the most important employment laws that currently govern the legal aspect of United State employment. That law is the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The said law protects specific classes of employees, from race, color, religions, sex or national origin, from employer discrimination. As such, an employer, according to Title VII is prohibited from discriminating against an individual because of his or her protected class in firing, hiring and other terms and conditions of employment such as promotion, salary raise, and the like. The focus of this article will be about the discrimination based on religion.

Aside from prohibiting discrimination against employees whose life revolves around their religious beliefs, Title VII also requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to them. Reasonable religious accommodation in employment law means workplace adjustments in which employees can practice their religion freely and without bias.

Here are some examples of reasonable religious accommodation:

• Providing a flexible schedule; 
• Giving swaps or voluntary substitutions;
• Reassignment to another kind of job; and 
• Lateral transfers.

Likewise, the EEOC’s information regarding employers’ obligations to prevent such discrimination states that they must not carry out activities towards employees that may create a conflict or cause interference in the latter’s religious practices. For instance, employers must not be too strict when it comes to dress code, especially if there is one employee who wears a turban or a head scarf at work. Also, employers must not refuse an employee to observe a religious holiday or the Sabbath day.

Consequently, employers must initiate ways to prevent discrimination in the workplace based on religion. As it is, employers may be able to reduce their chances of a lawsuit by implementing an anti-harassment and/or anti-discrimination within their respective workplaces. Otherwise, an employee subjected to such bias may think of seeking the help of a Los Angeles employment discrimination lawyer to file charges against the erring employer.