Religious Discrimination Essay

Religious discrimination low designation vii as defined by the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity counsel (EEOC) involves treating a person unfavorably because of his or her unearthly beliefs. The law protects non only concourse who be enormous to traditional, organized religious beliefs but also others who move over sincerely held ghostly, ethical or moral beliefs. The law forbids discrimination on the basis of religion in any and each(prenominal) aspects of employment. This overwhelms hiring, firing, pay, blood assignments, promotions, layoff, training, and benefits.Title VII also prohibits take a crapplace segregation ground on religion, such(prenominal)(prenominal) as assigning an employee to a non-customer contact position because of actual or presumed customer preference. Title VII also addresses reasonable accommodation in relation to religion. The law requires that the employer must somewhat accommodate an employees religious beliefs or practices, unless doin g so would cause more than a minimal cargo on the employers blood line.For example, if an employee needs to be off work on sunshine mornings to regularly attend church services it would be the responsibility of the employer to reasonably attempt to accommodate this need. An accommodation for this could include paying a nonher employee to report the Sun mean solar daylight morning shift, nonetheless if it requires paying overtime. Or the employer could hire an excess employee to be able to cover the shift. Since Title 7 of the fall in States polished Rights Act was passed in 1964 on that point return been several judicial decisions that give up molded the way this law in interpreted and applied.The first such begyard effect that I came crosswise was the facial expression of Welsh V. United States which brought into question what types of beliefs can be used to obtain conscientious demonstrator placement when being selected to go to war. In this case the prosecutor was convicted of refusing to use up induction into the armed forces he did claim conscientious objector status but did not base this decision off religion. He did not claim to believe in a deity that would morally slip away him from fighting in a war, he instead asserted his witness personal moral opposition to any date in which race are being killed.He alleged that the sincerity of his belief should answer him for exemption from military duty under the Universal Military breeding and Service Act. The Act allowed only those people whose opposition to the war was base on religious beliefs to be declared conscientious objectors. However in a 5-3 decision the court allowed Welsh to be declared a conscientious objector even though his opposition was not ground on religious convictions. The implication this case has on Human Resources precaution is that HR personnel must be aware of the broad domain of beliefs that go out be defend under Title 7.Whereas before this case only m ajorly defined religions such as Judaism and Catholicism would be protected you now see religions such as scientology seeking protection under the law. Another relevant case would be Seshadri v. Kasraian which establish that an employee bringing a religious discrimination claim does not need to belong to an established church. Another case that has shaped this law and impacted human imaging management was Campos v. City of Blue Springs.In April 1996 Campos was hired as a crisis counselor for the Blue Springs Police Departments Youth Outreach curriculum (YOU). At the time she did not book the advanced degree as undeniable by the written job description, but her supervisory program told her that she would have until February 1997 to obtain her degree and guarantee her position. She was also guaranteed via verbal contract that she would be paid an extra $10,000 per year for support group work, she would be a police squad leader within three months, and she would be an assistant music director within six months of starting her full-time employment.She began working in October 1996, enjoying her job until she disclosed to her supervisor that she observes tenets of Native American Spirituality, not Christianity. Campos claimed that immediately her supervisors behavior towards her changed she was unfriendly and critical, excluded her from employee meetings, and told her that she may not have been a good fit for the job. after(prenominal) failing to show up to work due to attending a mandatory meeting to obtain her dissertation, which was needed by her employer, Campos received so much scrutiny from her supervisor that she resigned.After her resignation, Campos filed suit against the City, alleging that she suffered from employment discrimination establish upon her religion, sex, and national origin. The charges of sex and national origin discrimination were eliminated, and the case was submitted to the jury on the theory that Campos was constructively disch arged because of her religion. On April 13, 2001, the jury awarded Campos $79,200 for back pay and compensatory damages. The district court denied the Citys Motion for Judgment as a bailiwick of Law, or in the Alternative, for a New Trial, and awarded Camposs attorneys 90,556. 20 in fees and $11,825. 41 in expenses.This case has implications on Human Resources Management directly because it establishes that employment decisions cannot be made based on whether or not an employee or potential employee agrees or disagrees with the employers religious views. One relevant business that comes to mind is Chik Fil A and their openly Christian beliefs. Even though they include Christian values in the core content of their mission report and business plan they know that they cannot declare any employment decisions based on religious affiliation.In Eatman V.United Parcel Service in 2002 the companys policy of requiring its drivers that had unconventional copperstyles to wear hats was cal led into question. The plaintiff was require by the company to wear a hat while on the clock because his hairstyle of choice was dreadlocks, a hairstyle where sections of hair are hand-rolled together in tight, interwoven spirals.After putting a lot of thought into the decision, Eatman, who is black, began habiliment locks in February 1995 as an outward expression of an internal commitment to his Protestant faith as well as his Nubian belief system. At this alike time he also became enlightened about locked hair and its contact to African identity and heritage. The position that his supervisor at UPS took on his hair was that the company uses common sense to determine which hairstyles are not heartfelt he finds ponytails, Mohawks, green hair, carved shapes, and locked hairshort or longunacceptable. And there were currently 19 other drivers at this particular UPS that were required to wear hats to cover their unconventional hairstyles, including others that had dreadlocks.Even t hough Eatman claimed that the policy was homophobic the jury did not rule in his favor. It was ruled that Eatmans hairstyle was hardened by a personal choice. Nowhere in his religious texts did it arrange in any way that followers of the faith must wear their hair uncovered in dreadlocks. The implications of this case are truly pro employer and pro Human Resource Manager. It shows that not every claim that an employee assimilates based off of religious need has to be immediately catered to.There are cases where the request can be frivolous and off topic of religion, in which case the employer does not need to go out of their way to make accommodations. Another very interesting court case that I came across was EEOC v. Union Independiete De La Autoridad De Acueductos y Alcantarillados De Puerto Rico. I found this case to be very interesting because it stipulates that employees cannot pick and choose which parts of their religion they adjure to follow and which ones they do not. In this case the issue was whether or not a Seventh day Adventists objection to union rank was the product of a sincerely held belief.Although the religious foundation of the Seventh day Adventist faiths opposition to union membership has long been recognized, there was evidence that this employee often acted in a manner inconsistent with his professed religious beliefs. He was divorced, took an oath before a notary upon becoming a public employee, worked five age a week (instead of the six days required by his faith), and there was some evidence that the alleged conflict between his beliefs and union membership was a moving target.This case seemed substantial because is forces the employee to prove that religion is vital part of their life. It keeps them from claiming that they are Christian for the restore purpose of being off on Christmas, or from claiming that they are Catholic only to be off on Easter. It not only keeps people from faking being religious but it also helps to ensure the sanctity of those who actually are as religious as they claim to be. And the final court case that I found addresses sincerely held beliefs that have not ever so been there but can conceivably come about.In the case of E. E. O. C. v. Ilona of Hungary, Inc. an employee sincerely believed that she should refrain from working on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur even though she had not frequently celebrated Jewish holidays in the past. Her deck up in faith was brought on by recent family events such as the passing of her mother-in-law and father, the birth of her son, and her husbands rising faith. The court determined that these were significant enough to have caused a change in life style and that she did believably have a real change of faith.After reviewing all of the cases mentioned above, along with numerous others, I have found that the topic of religion isnt nearly as black and white as some would assume. There are many grey areas What constitutes religion, h ow do you know if individual legitimately believes in their religion, and what aspects of someones lifestyle are relevant to their claimed religion are just a few examples of where courts have to make a decision that will affect the way this topic is viewed for historic period to come.With the world become more and more diversified every day the topic of religion and all others under title 7 will continue to be tested and pushed to their limits. It is the job of the Human Resources Management team to be on high alert of potential discrimination cases and have all employees properly trained on these matters to ensure it does not turn over at their company.