By: Claire Sweetman
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Clarifies Religious Liberty Question Posed by EEOC
On September 18, 2025, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora C. Pettit wrote in a memorandum issued to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that agencies should disregard all references to the “de minimis” standard and “appearance of official endorsement” test for determining an undue hardship for Establishment Clause violations.[1] In the 15-page memorandum, Pettit stated that federal guidelines about religious liberty and expression should be enforced in a manner that does not prevent workers from using “situational telework options” if required to do so based on their religious beliefs. The legal clarification was in response to a request from the EEOC to clarify workers’ rights in light of the Trump administration’s push for federal workers to return to work in-person. Pettit concluded that President Bill Clinton’s 1997 Guidelines on Religious Exercise and Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace may be “generally [] enforced” to allow workers telework accommodations. However, the accommodation must be fact-specific to the individual worker and might not be “always appropriate.”[2]
The Supreme Court’s Groff v. DeJoy (2023) decision held that employers must reasonably accommodate a worker’s religion under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act unless doing so “would result in substantial increased costs” and cause an undue hardship to their business. Additionally, the Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) reinforced public employees’ protections for personal religious expression in public spaces. The Kennedy decision prevented agencies from restricting religious expression merely because it creates “an appearance of official endorsement.” Pettit clarified in the memorandum that the law does not require agencies to permit all religious expression in the workplace and does not mean that the Constitution imposes “no limits on religious conduct or expression by government employees.” Pettit urged agencies to “adhere to the common-sense proposition that ‘the workplace is for work, and an agency may restrict any speech that truly interferes with its ability to perform public services.’”
This memorandum supports, in some ways, the current EEOC’s Acting Chair Andrea Lucas’s stated priority of investigating religious discrimination in the workplace. Employers may experience an uptick in employee requests for religious accommodations and/or complaints regarding religious discrimination. Companies should closely monitor the current EEOC and OLC guidelines to ensure compliance with federal law.
[1] 49 Op. O.L.C. ___ (Sept. 18, 2025).
[2] Id.