A Minnesota company called AscensionPoint recovery Services, requires its employees to be fingerprinted as part of a background check that was being randomly conducted on employee Henry Harrington. He was made aware of this requirement when he received an email in July 2017, while he was under employment by the company. He wrote to the company explaining, “that the fingerprinting requirement conflicted with his religious beliefs and requested an exemption from the fingerprinting requirement as an accommodation.” He attempted to go in to work later that day, and was told that he must comply with the fingerprint requirement. He refused, and was fired, without the company “exploring any alternatives to fingerprinting.”
On behalf of Harrington, The U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is is filing a lawsuit against the company under the notion that the company was discriminating against Harrington due to his Christian faith. The EEOC is appealing to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that prohibits religious discrimination and requires reasonable accommodations to an employees religious practices. The EEOC argues that an exemption could have been given, or an alternative to a fingerprint could have been provided and was not. Attorney Gregory Gochanour states, “An employee should not have to choose between his faith and his livelihood."
This case addresses two important aspects of “free exercise” arguments. The first being the looming question of whether or not the rejection of the accommodation or exemption from the fingerprint requirement was a violation of Harrington’s right to freely practice his religion and a violation of title VII of the Civil Rights act of 1964. To address this, we can turn to a case that the EEOC won in 2015. This case involved a coal miner, Beverly Butcher, who was forced to retire early due to his refusal to comply with a newly implemented biometric scanning system that a company used to clock in and clock out their employees. While the company would not grant him an exemption due to his religious observances, the company did however offer an exemption to two employees who could not scan because of injuries to their hands. This past win by the EEOC works in favor of Harrington, as the court ruled against the company’s attempt to force this employee to quit because of his religious duties. This rules that the state has no compelling interest in prohibiting religious exemptions for matters such as scans. It is clear based on this precedent, that an accommodation must be provided. Despite this, an accommodation or exemption can be justly denied if it causes “undue hardship.” This denial of an accommodation can only be made if it, “is costly, compromises workplace safety, decreases workplace efficiency, infringes on the rights of other employees or requires other employees to do more than their share of potentially hazardous or burdensome work.” In order to decide whether or not an exemption causes this “undue hardship”, we can return to Butcher’s case, where in a similar situation an exemption was granted to those in his company who were physically unable to partake in the biometric scan. It was clear that this exemption was of no burden to other employees, or the company. The only difference here is the nature of the request for an exemption.
According to the ruling of the Butcher’s case, the companies are to address this religious exemption the same exact way they would address the exemption due to a restrictive injury. In this manner, both Harrington, and Butcher’s cases can be seen as addressing the issue of sincerity of their beliefs. Butcher’s case sets the precedent that the court will not be the judge of the sincerity of one’s belief. Although in Harrington’s suit there was no specific description of how the fingerprint scan would clash with his religious beliefs, the court is bound, in some sense, by the ruling of Butcher case.
Barring the religious aspect of this case, it is important to address the difference between the manner in which Harrington’s company dealt with his request for an accommodation, and how they are bound to deal with accommodation requests according to the department of Labor. According to Harrington, his company immediately terminated him upon his refusal to comply with the fingerprint scan. This would imply that the company did not make an attempt to reasonably accommodate his request for a religious accommodation or exemption. "When an employer receives a request for accommodation, the best practice is to have the company (usually a human resources person) discuss the need with the employee and try to figure out a way to help that works for both." It was clear that this practice was ignored in Harrington’s case.
I believe that Harrington and the EEOC are in the right in this case, and any other option would paint the state as an adversary to religious practice. Harrington is not to have the sincerity of his religious beliefs questioned, and this precedent was established through Butcher’s very similar case. Most importantly, a religious exemption should be approved that would allow Mr. Harrington to both be employed and practice his religion freely.
Sources:
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/07/22/religious-discrimination-lawsuit-fingerprinting/4641626890053/
https://www.justice.gov/crt/laws-enforced-employment-litigation-section#:~:text=Title%20VII%20of%20the%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%20of%201964%20(Title,and%20gender%20identity)%20or%20religion.
4 comments:
I do believe that it becomes a slippery slope once Harrington's employers start questioning the sincerity of his religious beliefs. However, there is also a slippery slope in terms of requesting exemptions, especially since Harrington does not provide a religious explanation was to why he can't get fingerprinted, only that it conflicted with his religious beliefs. He was definitely fired too quickly, especially since other fingerprinting exemptions have been made. I do think it would be interesting to explore the compelling state interest behind requiring fingerprinting to see if it should be something that outweighs a religious exemption. However, because other exemptions were made, as well as the precedent set by the previous case you brought up, it does seem as if this may a form of religious discrimination. The employers should work with Harrington to search for alternate solutions so that he does not have to choose between his job and religion.
I completely agree with the case you made for Harrington's situation. Sure, there could be an argument for a slippery slope of exemptions, but that is completely pointless to make because, like neutral programs that happen to fund certain religious schools over others, you can't control the demographics of an area or group. You pointed out that the fingerprinting policy was added after Harrington worked there, and although it provides additional support for his case, I don't think it's necessary because employers are not allowed to ask about a candidate's religion during the hiring process anyway. In my opinion, there is no excuse for HR and the employer to deny his request and terminate his employment that quickly. The interest for a background check or DNA is not compelling enough for the burden put on Harrington when his employment was terminated because there are other ways to get DNA and other information that could be used for a background check. This is especially significant because exemptions were made for other reasons, clearly showing how the policy is not neutral between religion and non-religion.
This is an interesting case and if I had to make a decision right now I would agree with your opinion that the court should rule in favor of Mr. Harrington. The most important factor for me was the idea that religious exemptions should be treated in the exact same way as any kind of restrictive injury. In this case, it clearly wasn't. I do see how this can cause a slippery slope in terms of trying to address the true sincerity of one's religious actions. However, I'd also argue that maybe Mr. Harrington should have offered some form of concrete evidence like a scripture passage that made him believe he couldn't be figure printed. Overall, based on the precedents you mentioned I do think that the employer violated Mr. Harrington's rights and was wrongfully fired.
I have conflicting views on this case. At the end of the day, I think I find myself in the same boat as Tommy but it is complicated. On one hand, I strongly doubt the sincerity of Harringtons' belief. Taking someone's fingerprint did not exist during the founding of Christianity and is not a matter of one's afterlife. I do recognize this is not a great argument as it is not the job of the court to judge the sincerity. That being said I think it is a slippery slope to allow these kinds of exceptions. It could be reasonably assumed that if fingerprinting was against someone's religion then swabbing their mouth, taking a urine sample, or a hair sample would also violate their religion. at a certain point, I think it fair for an employer to protect their own interests even if they aren't founded in religion. I think this is a case where I take issue with offering an exemption. All that being said the company did not offer any of those alternatives I just mentioned. It would not have been all that difficult for them to do so. Because of this, and the fact that we cannot accurately judge sincerity I agree with Tommy's position, although reluctantly.
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