Examine religious practice in the workplace

Medical Laboratory Observer, June, 2005 by Barbara Harty-Golder

Q Our medical director is a religious devotee, which is great, except that she insists on starting lab meetings and luncheons with a prayer. She typically chooses someone at random to offer the prayer.

Nobody objects to her faith, and she is a great director otherwise, but this is making some of us uncomfortable. What are the rules on religious expression in the workplace?

A This is as much a question of common sense as it is of law, although the law does have something to say about the subject. While public displays of faith are certainly appropriate (bowing one's head for silent prayer, wearing religious attire and accessories, and so on), activity that amounts to proselytizing in the workplace is not. Your medical director seems to have stepped over that line by involving less-than-willing participants in her personal religious exercise.

In general, the law requires an employer to accommodate his employees' religious beliefs and to refrain from making hiring, firing, and promotion decisions based on religious grounds. This protects the individual from harassment in the workplace based on the exercise of his religion, but does not give free rein to any and all types of religious exercise in the workplace.

Those activities that involve others, especially subordinates who are not in a good position to refuse, can--and should--be the subject of restriction by the employer. The nature and extent will depend in some measure on the employer: federal versus private, religious versus secular. For obvious reasons, an employee in a Catholic hospital, for example, can normally expect to be exposed to more religious expression in the workplace than one in a private, secular, for-profit institution.

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Most legal cases that involve religious harassment concern disparagement of an individual's religion by someone else in the workplace, particularly someone in authority, or blatant discrimination by hiring or firing an individual based on his religious beliefs. Some cases involve the extent to which an employer must go to accommodate religious expression (wearing of religious garb, days off for religious holidays, and so on).

In the view of some commentators, however, proselytizing, or an aggressive attempt to force personal religious views and practices on another, can be viewed as workplace harassment. In such a situation, religious harassment is subject to the same sort of legal repercussions as sexual harassment and, thus, can be fodder for a lawsuit.

If, as you indicate, many of your co-workers feel uncomfortable with this director's activities and are forced to participate against their will, the situation might be one that could be considered harassment, should it ever be evaluated by the courts.

The question then becomes how to address the situation. If you are comfortable speaking privately with your medical director and explaining that her insistence on public prayer and her recruiting of unwilling volunteers to participate is causing discord and friction, this may well be the easiest approach.

If this action produces no results, or if you are concerned that presenting the issue to her directly will result in repercussions for you, report the matter to the HR director or whomever your institution's harassment policy designates. The HR director should be in a position to discuss the matter with the medical director, and your institution should have a policy regulating religious interaction in the workplace, just as it has a policy on sexual harassment.

By Barbara Harty-Golder, MD, JD

Barbara Harty-Golder is a pathologist-attorney consultant in Chattanooga, TN. She maintains a law practice with a special interest in medical law. She writes and lectures extensively on healthcare law, risk management, and human resource management.

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MLO's "Liability and the Lab" is intended to provide risk management and human resource management education; it is not intended to provide specific legal advice. If you require legal advice, the services of an attorney should be sought. Dr. Harty-Golder welcomes your questions, which can be sent to her at toadehall@comcast.net.