You’re a new employee with the U.S. Department of Commerce. You’re still in your probationary period. Your boss asks you if you’ll be joining her scripture study over lunch. Can you say no without offending her, or will that mean a bad start to an important relationship?
You’re a veteran recovering in a Veterans Affairs hospital after surgery. You wake up to a nurse praying over you. You don’t pray in the same way and it makes you uncomfortable. Can you ask him to stop without hurting your care?
You should never have to make these calculations. Federal law and the U.S. Constitution ensure:
Yet a recent memo from the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to federal agencies tries to claim the nurse’s and boss’s actions are totally fine.
That’s why we’ve created a “Know Your Rights” guide – with clear explanations and examples relating to religious freedom at work – to help federal employees and supervisors better understand their rights and responsibilities.
In late July, OPM circulated a memo to agencies claiming to outline religious freedom protections for federal employees.
The OPM memo correctly states employees’ basic rights to practice and discuss religion at work alongside any other form of expression, as well as to access reasonable religious accommodations.
But, as Americans United explained in a recent letter to 19 federal agencies, the memo also has a bunch of inaccuracies and omissions. If followed, agencies would risk harming employees and members of the public. And, they would be violating the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
The memo leaves out important constitutional protections that keep employees and the public from being pressured to take part in religion. And it ignores the power imbalances that add to this pressure when a supervisor interacts with employees or when a government worker delivers federal services to members of the public. The examples provided by the memo, similar to those discussed above, dismiss any concerns about coercion.
The memo also doesn’t discuss protections against government favoring or disfavoring religion. Its examples again highlight this omission: It only provides examples of Christian and Jewish employees, suggesting that the government might favor the religious expression of some employees over others. A Muslim employee seeking an adjusted work schedule to break fast during Ramadan has the same rights as a Jewish employee seeking an adjusted work schedule to observe Yom Kippur or a Christian employee to attend Ash Wednesday services.
Finally, the memo fails to mention federal law protecting employees from religious harassment and discrimination. While federal employees have the right to engage in religious expression just like any other form of expression, they don’t have the right to harm others while doing so.
Understanding rights and responsibilities regarding religious freedom in the federal workplace is critically important. Inaccurate guidance from the Trump administration doesn’t help.
That’s why we’ve created the “Know Your Rights” guide – please share it with any federal workers you know. And if you think you or someone you know has experienced a violation of religious freedom in the federal workplace, you can reach out to us! Report a violation here, and we’ll be in touch.
