President Trump announces protection of prayer in public schools
President Trump announced new upcoming guidelines to protect prayer in public schools.
In September, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged Apple with making anti-Semitic comments by a manager at the company’s retail store in Virginia and forcing Jewish employees to work on the Sabbath.
According to a federal lawsuit filed in Alexandria, Virginia., The Reston store manager also warned the 16-year-old, who works at Genius Bar, which provides technical support to customers, not to discuss the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel with co-workers.
The teenager said she complained to Apple twice, but was fired in January 2024 for refusing to work on Fridays.
Apple denies the boy’s claims and told USA TODAY it promotes an “inclusive environment where everyone is welcome.” The company also said it had received more than a dozen complaints about the employee from customers and co-workers.
The lawsuit is the latest in a surge of complaints alleging faith-based discrimination and anti-Semitism as the Trump administration makes a major push to expand religious freedom in the workplace.
During his campaign, President Donald Trump appealed to conservative Christian voters, portraying the 2024 presidential election as a battle of faith. At the beginning of his administration, he vowed that his administration would “defend our nation’s founding Judeo-Christian values.”
In July, the Office of Personnel Management outlined federal employees’ rights to engage in religious expression, such as praying in the workplace, displaying religious items, and encouraging co-workers to share their faith, and directed federal agencies to take a “permissive approach” to religious accommodations, such as flexible schedules.
President Trump expands religious rights in the workplace
The EEOC, which investigates employment discrimination in the private sector, has increasingly focused on faith-based protections. As of September, the EEOC had filed more than 50 cases in 2025, according to the White & Case law firm. Although religious discrimination lawsuits make up a relatively small portion of cases, such complaints are “on the rise,” White & Case lawyers said. This month, the Senate confirmed President Trump’s selection of Brittany Panuccio to serve as EEOC Commissioner, and she was sworn in this week. This established a Republican majority in the agency and paved the way for the EEOC to make major policy changes and approve certain types of lawsuits. In January, President Trump fired two Democratic commissioners before their terms were up, leaving the EEOC without a quorum.
“The EEOC has already come out and said they will advance the president’s agenda,” said Barbara Hoey, an employment lawyer at Kelly, Dry & Warren. “Now that we’re at capacity, you’ll see a lot of activity.”
Religion is an EEOC “signature issue”
According to Gallup, about three out of four Americans have a religious faith. Despite America’s increasing polarization, the workplace is a place where people of different faiths regularly interact, creating the potential for conflict.
A 2022 Rice University survey found that two-thirds of Muslims, half of Jews, and more than one-third of evangelical Christians say they have experienced discrimination at work.
Four in 10 U.S. workers surveyed by the nonprofit Gebura Foundation believe religious discrimination is on the rise, and one in five said they had been treated poorly or harassed in the past year because of their religion.
Acting Chair Andrea Lucas said she wants to make defending religious freedom the “defining issue” of the EEOC’s time.
Lucas told senators during a hearing in June that she was inspired to pursue employment law in part because her father, who lost his job when she was young, “spoke honestly” about his faith.
Lucas recently said that under the Biden administration, “religious protections have too often been put on the back burner for policy awakening” and that American workers should not be forced to choose “between a paycheck and their faith.”
Under her watch, the EEOC sued a staffing company for forcing Muslim employees to choose between shaving their beards or being fired, and a vacation timeshare company for not responding to Seventh-day Adventists’ requests for Saturdays off to observe the Sabbath.
Many lawsuits were also settled. In April, Chipotle paid $20,000 to settle allegations that an assistant manager in Kansas repeatedly harassed a Muslim employee for wearing a hijab and then tried to remove it.
In September, national restaurant chain PF Chang’s agreed to pay $80,000 to a job applicant who claimed he was rejected because he requested Sundays off for religious reasons. PF Chang’s also agreed to revise its workplace policy regarding religious accommodations and post notices to staff on this matter.
claims that religious discrimination is on the rise
The Trump administration’s focus on religious freedom makes the Supreme Court more receptive to claims from religious groups.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits religious discrimination in the workplace and requires employers to accommodate workers’ beliefs and practices unless it creates hardship.
In 1977, the Supreme Court defined that hardship as minimal hardship, making it easier for employers to deny religious accommodations. But two years ago, the country’s high court strengthened protections for religious rights in the workplace, ruling in favor of Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian and former postal worker who claimed he was discriminated against for refusing to deliver mail on Sundays.
Currently, employers must show significant hardship if they refuse to respect religious beliefs and customs, such as allowing employees to wear yarmulkes, hijabs, or turbans, allowing prayers at work, or scheduling work around religious observances.
“The fallout from Mr. Groff is still being tested in courtrooms across the country,” Kelly Dry’s Hoey and Benjamin Gilman wrote in September. “The sheer volume of cases over the past two years shows that issues surrounding religious discrimination and accommodations in the workplace are not going away anytime soon.”
Abby Sutherland, senior litigation attorney at the American Center for Law and Justice, said the group, which defends religious and constitutional liberties, has seen “a steady increase in religious discrimination claims.”
Sutherland said she expects more “equitable enforcement” and “close attention” to religious rights from the Trump administration.
“In contrast to the current administration, where President Trump is committed to ensuring enforcement of these laws, I believe the previous administration has aggressively delayed enforcement of federal law in this area,” she said.
Tensions over religion rise in the workplace
The Center for Law and Justice recently filed a complaint with the EEOC against Timken, an industrial and automotive equipment manufacturer. A former human resources manager at a Springfield, Missouri, plant claims she was fired after she hid a crucifix necklace under her shirt and was told to write off the Bible she read during a work break because it wasn’t “inclusive.”
Timken declined to comment on “individual personnel actions or ongoing legal matters” and said it is committed to “maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment for all employees.”
At a time when managers were encouraging employees to “go all in,” practicing faith in the workplace was already raising complex questions. Now, greater religious freedom could increase workplace tensions and create even bigger headaches for employers, lawyers say.
Under current EEOC guidance, this law protects all religions, including new and unusual faiths. What if these religious beliefs conflict with more traditional beliefs? Or what if a Christian employee invites an atheist co-worker to Bible study and the atheist employee complains of harassment?
“One thing is clear: employees have the right to bring their religious beliefs and expressions to the workplace,” wrote Paige Hoster Good, a partner at Oklahoma-based McAfee & Taft LLP. “What is not clear for employers is how far that right extends, how to resolve difficult issues when there is a conflict of beliefs, or how to balance the competing rights of employees who may feel harassed due to religious expression.”
The only guarantee? “Clients are going to start calling me and their attorneys to figure it out,” Good told USA TODAY.
