A recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Johnson v. York Academy Regional Charter School, reminds employers of their obligation to meaningfully participate in the process of identifying reasonable accommodation of their employees’ religious beliefs.
Monik Johnson was employed by a charter school as a business manager. Many years into her employment, Ms. Johnson began observing the Lunar Sabbath, which required her not to work on the day of the New Moon, which varies from month to month depending on the lunar cycle. Ms. Johnson sent a letter to the school’s CEO requesting to work four ten-hour workdays in the weeks when the Lunar Sabbath fell on a weekday so she could be absent from work on the New Moon.
The CEO asked Ms. Johnson to provide third-party verification of her sincerely held belief in the Lunar Sabbath, including producing literature explaining her observance. He also asked Ms. Johnson to provide a written statement addressing whether she would be able to designate her Sabbaths for up to a year in advance; her availability for consultation by phone on those days; and her willingness to work a standard five-day workweek when her Sabbath fell on a weekend. Ms. Johnson provided the requested information, but she confirmed she would be unavailable for work-related contact on weekday Lunar Sabbaths except for true emergencies that could not go unaddressed until the next day.
Relying heavily on feedback from the CEO who omitted critical information regarding Ms. Johnson’s flexibility, the academy’s Board of Trustees denied Ms. Johnson’s religious accommodation request on the grounds that her requested absences would present an undue hardship, but the school invited Ms. Johnson to continue the dialogue, implying that she could present a different request for accommodation. The next day, Ms. Johnson resigned, then she sued for failure to provide religious accommodation and constructive discharge in retaliation for seeking religious accommodation.
The trial court denied two motions to dismiss her complaint in October 2023. After discovery, the academy moved for summary judgment, claiming that Ms. Johnson could not prevail as a matter of law because there was no evidence of an adverse employment action based on constructive discharge. On September 23, 2026, the trial court denied that motion as well. The court rejected the school’s argument that Ms. Johnson had not experienced constructive discharge, principally because the school did not satisfy its threshold duty of offering reasonable accommodation. Instead, it had simply rejected the employee’s suggested accommodation without counter and invited her to “continue discussions.” The court observed: “While bilateral cooperation is integral to resolving religious conflict, an invitation for the employee to propose an alternative is not itself an accommodation.”
Continuing, the court held that Ms. Johnson was left with the Hobson’s choice of deciding between continued employment and violating her religious beliefs. The court was persuaded that this dilemma was a sufficiently “intolerable condition” as to constitute an adverse employment action, even without a direct threat of termination by the school, and thus Ms. Johnson satisfied the elements required to establish religious discrimination and retaliatory discharge such that she could present her case to a jury, including her demand for punitive damages on the grounds that the school was recklessly indifferent to her religious beliefs.
The case is a reminder that Title VII’s religious accommodation obligation requires more than a dismissive review of an employee’s request to determine whether their proposed accommodation presents an undue hardship. To satisfy its threshold burden, the employer must propose an accommodation aimed at eliminating the conflict between the employee’s religious belief and work duties.
Further, although the Court did not discuss this point at length because the school ultimately concluded that the employee’s religious beliefs were sincere, the CEO’s request for independent verification of the validity of Ms. Johnson’s religious observations is problematic. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) takes the position that employers should ordinarily assume that an employee’s request is based on a sincerely held religious belief, even if those beliefs are unconventional, noting that “[a] religious practice may be sincerely held by an individual even if newly adopted, not consistently observed, or different from the commonly followed tenets of the individual’s religion.” Absent circumstances suggesting that Ms. Johnson’s stated religious observation was not sincere, the CEO’s request for independent, third-party verification of her beliefs suggests animus toward her unconventional religious observation.
To that point, the court was particularly disturbed by the CEO’s omission of critical facts when he presented Ms. Johnson’s request to the Board of Trustees. Evidence suggested that he failed to relay to the Board that Ms. Johnson was committed to working a 40-hour workweek even when the New Moon fell during the workweek; that she worked four 10-hour days during the summer months without significant disruption to the business; and that she was willing to work her usual five 8-hour workday schedule during weeks when the New Moon fell on the weekend. The court found that the omission of this critical information not only interfered with the Board’s reasoned consideration of Ms. Johnson’s accommodation request but also could be the basis for an award of punitive damages. To avoid a similar outcome, decisionmakers should ensure they have all information necessary to render a decision on an employee’s request for accommodation and not only a filtered version of the facts skewed by a potentially biased member of company management.
