The New Era of Religious Accommodations: Clarifying the Standard for “Sincere Religious Beliefs” and Evaluating Undue Hardship

Since vaccines became available in response to COVID-19, courts have dealt with an onslaught of litigation involving religious accommodation in the workplace. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit weighed in on when an employee’s accommodation request to be exempt from a vaccination requirement amounts to a sincerely held religious belief under Title VII. The case is Gardner-Alfred v. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 143 F.4th 51 (2d Cir. 2025). 

The EEOC also recently weighed in with opinions that emphasize that an employer must face a significant hardship before it can show that the religious accommodation request cannot be met. 

This recent activity may be foreshadowing that the future of employment litigation is religious accommodations. In fact, on August 18, 2025, the EEOC published a press release titled: “200 Days of EEOC Action to Protect Religious Freedom at Work.” EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas stated, 

Title VII recognizes the reality that religious freedom is a fundamental right that transcends workplace policies[.] During the previous administration, workers’ religious protections too often took a backseat to woke policies. Under my leadership, the EEOC is restoring evenhanded enforcement of Title VII—ensuring that workers are not forced to choose between their paycheck and their faith.

The court of appeals’ decision shows the low standard to establish a prima facie claim of religious discrimination

To establish a claim of religious discrimination under workplace anti-discrimination laws, a plaintiff must show that their employer’s policy conflicts with their beliefs. They also must also show that their beliefs are both religious and sincerely held. In Gardner-Alfred, two plaintiffs – both former employees – were terminated after their employer denied their request for a religious accommodation from the employer’s requirement that employees be vaccinated for COVID-19. The employer’s vaccination requirement coincided with its policy to return workers to the office. Gardner-Alfred requested an accommodation based upon her belief that the vaccination would violate her conscious by introducing foreign substances into her body. The other plaintiff, Diaz, requested an accommodation based on her belief that her religion barred her from taking a vaccine made with aborted fetal cells.

The district court granted summary judgment for the employer, finding that Gardner-Alfred’s professed religious reason for avoiding vaccination was merely adopted for the purpose of avoiding the vaccine and was therefore not sincerely held under the law. Gardner-Alfred’s testimony did not include details about her membership in the “Temple of the Healing Spirit,” to support a religious discrimination claim. In other words, the evidence was clear that she did not have a sincerely held religious belief in conflict with her employer’s policy. For example, the court focused on the fact that Gardner-Alfred could not provide any details about any services she attended, nor did she produce any documents in support of her claim that she attended services virtually. The Second Circuit found Gardner-Alfred’s inability to explain how she obtained her “vaccination exemption package” was fatal to her claim because the same package was available for purchase to the general public (i.e., one did not have to be a participating member of the congregation to get a copy of a premade religious exemption request to submit to one’s employer) 

The district court found that Diaz’s beliefs were also not sincere as she acted in a manner inconsistent with her beliefs (e.g., that she consumed medications without first checking to ensure they were not “made using aborted fetal cell lines”) and that her request to be exempt from vaccination was not based on her faith.

Last month, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Gardner-Alfred’s claims and reversed its dismissal of Diaz’s claims. In doing so, the court found that it was inappropriate to find that Diaz’s inconsistent adherence to her religious beliefs (i.e., not checking to see if medications were “made using aborted fetal cell lines” before consuming them) was not a dispositive issue. The fact that Diaz admitted that as long as she did not know a medication was manufactured with aborted fetal cell lines, she could take it, did not make her belief any less sincere. Further, the fact that Diaz’s own pastor refused to sign her religious exemption request was irrelevant as Diaz’s own beliefs were at issue, not any “particular representative of Catholicism.” 

In addition, the Second Circuit found that the fact that mRNA vaccines do not “contain, and are not manufactured with aborted fetal cell lines” was not dispositive. The Second Circuit pointed out, drawing all permissible inferences in Diaz’s favor (as required on summary judgment) Diaz’s objections “could easily be construed to include vaccines that were tested or developed using aborted fetal cells, even if such cells were not present in, or used to manufacture” the specific dose of the vaccine that Diaz objected to. In other words, even if the employee is wrong – and no aborted fetal cells were used – her religious objection is still legitimate and must be considered by the employer. 

Employers face an uphill battle to establish undue hardship in response to religious accommodation requests 

If an employee establishes a prima facie claim of religious discrimination – (1) the employee sincerely held a religious belief in conflict with an employment requirement; (2) the employee informed their employer of the belief; (3) the employer disciplined the employee for failing to comply with the requirement – the employer may still raise an affirmative defense under Title VII that the requested accommodation constituted an undue hardship. In Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court clarified in June 2023 that an undue hardship must impose on the employer “a burden [that] is substantial in the overall context of [its] business.” The standard prior to Groff was often interpreted by lower courts to require an employer to show "more than a de minimis cost."

The EEOC has made clear that in a post-Groff world the burden on employers is significant. The EEOC recently issued a ruling that the Department of Veterans Affairs violated the law in how it accommodated a Muslim physician who requested Friday afternoons off to attend prayer service. After receiving the accommodation request, the Department offered two accommodation choices – either work two half-days on Friday and Saturday each week to make up for the missed time or work a part-time position. The physician chose the part-time position in protest, as she had offered to extend her shifts Monday through Thursday to ensure she still worked 40 hours per day each week. 

The EEOC acknowledged that an employer is not required to choose the accommodation the employee prefers, so long as the offered accommodation is a reasonable alternative. In evaluating whether the Department offered the physician a reasonable alternative, the EEOC noted that one of the factors it considers is whether the accommodation disadvantages the employee. In other words, the accommodation must reasonably preserve the employee’s compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment. The EEOC found that neither the part-time position nor the six-day week accommodation was a reasonable alternative. 

Moreover, the EEOC found that the Department’s arguments about the physician’s proposed accommodation (extended workdays Monday through Thursday) did not constitute an undue hardship as the Department provided no evidence that accommodating the physician in this manner would result in diminished patient care, or would impact coworkers to such an extent it would affect the Department’s ability to conduct business. The fact that the accommodation would limit other employees’ ability to take a Friday off from work and lead to low morale in the workplace was also held not to be an undue hardship to the employer. 

Key Takeaways for Employers

Employers can anticipate more accommodation requests based on religious beliefs and might want to establish a process to evaluate these requests. Employers should be careful when assessing what is (and is not) a sincerely held religious belief in support of accommodation requests. Employers should also be fluent in the new post-Groff standard and know what is a “substantial increased cost” in relation to the particular business if the employer plans to deny an accommodation request based on undue hardship. 

Although the era of COVID-19 vaccination litigation may be waning, the COVID-era has created a new era of religious accommodation precedent. This precedent will transcend COVID-19 and could apply to religious-based objections to work assignments, workplace annual trainings, shift schedules, bathroom policies related to transgender employees, social media workplace practices, and much more.