Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche distributed a 26-page memo to federal agencies and departments on Thursday establishing strengthened protections for religious liberty.
The document revises Justice Department guidance on federal employment, religious organization safeguards, and accommodations for religious practice in light of recent Supreme Court rulings.
"Religious liberty is not merely a right to personal religious beliefs or even to worship in a particular place," Blanche wrote. "It also encompasses religious observance and practice as displayed in a person's daily life. Except in the narrowest circumstances, no one should be forced to choose between living out his or her faith and complying with the law."
Workplace accommodations for religious observance under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act have been a focus area for Jewish groups. A 2023 Supreme Court decision in Groff v. DeJoy found that the U.S. Postal Service had failed to accommodate a Christian employee's Sunday Sabbath observance.
The new memo specifies that such observances require accommodation unless doing so would create substantial hardship. "Covered employers are required to adjust employee work schedules for Sabbath observance, religious holidays and other religious observances even if such accommodations impose some costs on the business, unless such costs are substantial in the overall context of the business," Blanche wrote.
He added that employers claiming an accommodation cannot be reasonably made "must establish undue hardship on its business with specificity" And "cannot rely on assumptions about hardships that might result from an accommodation."
The guidance also addresses federal rulemaking and religious organizational autonomy. "A law drawn to prohibit a specific religious practice may discriminate just as severely against a religious group as a law drawn to prohibit the religion itself," Blanche wrote, offering as an example a hypothetical law prohibiting kosher meat sales.