Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic sparked newfound interest in—and scrutiny of—religious accommodation law due to the proliferation of lawsuits by workers who sought exemptions from their employers’ vaccine mandates. This piece contributes to the burgeoning conversation around workplace religious accommodations by examining the evolution of the law from its origin in 1972 to the present. The law’s development has not followed a straight line, but rather is marked by triumphs and defeats, advances and setbacks, that defy conventional explanation. If the topsy-turvy development of religious accommodation law has taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected. But what seems clear is that the future of religious accommodation law is less likely to be shaped by politics than it is by other influences, including demographic and cultural changes, the shift away from formal religious affiliation and toward individual spirituality, and, perhaps most critically, by how courts interpret Title VII’s undue-hardship defense in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent bombshell decision in Groff v. DeJoy.
Recommended Citation
Dallan F. Flake,
The Curious Case of Religious Accommodation,
69
St. Louis U. L.J.
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol69/iss2/8