PLEASE READ CAREFULLY
Name: _________________________
Reasonable accommodation case studies
Read each of the scenarios carefully and answer the prompts in bold. Your answer should be at least 3-4 sentences long, and should explain
why you are answering the way that you are.
1. Kim, a server at a restaurant, informed her manager that she would not be able to join other waitresses in singing “Happy Birthday” to customers because she is a Jehovah’s Witness whose religious beliefs do not allow her to celebrate holidays, including birthdays. There were enough servers on duty at any given time to perform this singing without affecting service. The manager refused any accommodation.
Does Kim have a right to refuse singing “Happy Birthday?”
2. Patricia alleges she was terminated from her job as a steel mill laborer because of her religion (Pentecostal) after she notified her supervisor that her faith prohibits her from wearing pants, as required by the mill’s dress code, and requested as an accommodation to be permitted to wear a skirt.
Management contends that the dress code is essential to the safe and efficient operation of the mill, and has evidence that it was imposed following several accidents in which skirts worn by employees were caught in the same type of mill machinery that Patricia operates.
Does this count as an undue hardship for the employer?
3. A large employer operating a fleet of buses had a policy of refusing to accept driver applications unless the applicant agreed that he or she was available to be scheduled to work any shift, seven days a week.
Is this policy legal?
4. Tina, a newly hired part-time store cashier whose sincerely held religious belief is that she should refrain from work on Sunday as part of her Sabbath observance, asked her supervisor never to schedule her to work on Sundays. Tina specifically asked to be scheduled to work Saturdays instead. In response, her employer offered to allow her to work on Thursday, which she found inconvenient because she takes a college class on that day.
Is the employer required to grant Tina’s preferred accommodation of Saturday?
5. As part of its effort to promote employee health and productivity, the new president of a company institutes weekly mandatory on-site meditation classes led by a local spiritualist. Angelina explains to her supervisor that the meditation conflicts with her sincerely held religious beliefs, and asks to be excused from participating.
Is the employer obligated to excuse Angelina from the classes?
6. Employer XYZ holds an annual training for employees on a variety of personnel matters, including compliance with EEO laws and also XYZ’s own internal anti-discrimination policy, which includes a prohibition on sexual orientation discrimination. Lucille asks to be excused from the portion of the training on sexual orientation discrimination because she believes that it “promotes the acceptance of homosexuality,” which she sincerely believes is immoral and sinful based on her religion.
Is Lucille’s request reasonable?
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MGT 3307, Diversity in Organizations Professor Chris Zhang, Ph.D., MBA, SHRM-SCP |
Marilyn Davies College of Business University of Houston Downtown |
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