The United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of workplace accommodation for religious employees in a 9-0 decision on June 29. Groff v. DeJoy is regarding an evangelical Christian United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier, Gerald Groff, who said that the USPS violated federal law by failing to reasonably accommodate his inability to work on Sundays. Groff lost in lower federal courts due to a decades-old Supreme Court precedent eviscerating the legal requirement for employers to accommodate the religious needs of their employing.

In this decision, SCOTUS clarified the precedent from 1977, in TWA v. Hardison, which functionally allowed employers to refuse to accommodate employees’ requests for religious accommodations due to an interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act which only required employers to provide such accommodations when doing so would not impose anything more than a “de minimis” expense on the employer. The Groff v. DeJoy decision differentiates between “undue hardship” on the employer from “de minimis,” noting that lower courts have incorrectly conflated the two, and that an employer must establish “undue hardship” to refuse religious accommodation.

“Forcing American Jews (or Americans of any faith) to choose between their career and their conscience is fundamentally at odds with the principle of religious freedom that is the foundation of the United States and our Constitution,” stated Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union executive director of public policy. “We regret that it has taken so long, but we are grateful that the Supreme Court has finally righted the wrong of Hardison and has reinstated the full right of religious accommodation in the workplace.”

According to a press release from the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, the OU filed a “friend of the court” brief for this case, which was quoted in Justice Alito’s majority opinion. The brief was co-authored by Diament, Eric Rassbach and Professor Michael Helfand (along with law students) of Pepperdine University’s religious liberty clinic.

“A core mission of the Orthodox Union is to advocate for the strongest legal protections for religious freedom – for Orthodox Jews and all Americans of faith. Members of our community require accommodations for Sabbath and holiday observance, times to pray, the ability to keep kosher, and the like,” said OU President Mitch Aeder. “Such accommodations enable us to be not only faithful Jews but productive workers and members of American society. That is why the Orthodox Union advocated to the Court in support of Mr. Groff and why we welcome this landmark ruling.”