Accommodating Religion Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act "prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin," a provision which lies at the heart of the August 22, 1995 Wall Street Journal article entitled "Legal Beat: Workers' religious beliefs may get new attention. ("Title VII") It is the prohibition against religious discrimination that the article claims Wal-Mart violated when they forced an employee to quit as a result of being scheduled for work on Sunday, his Sabbath Day. Because of a lawsuit filed by this employee, Wal-Mart incorporated a new religious accommodation policy which takes into account an employees religious beliefs when scheduling work shifts. And as a result of the thousands of other similar lawsuits filed across the United States, other employers are also incorporating new religious accommodation policies as well.

It was a Christian theology student named Scott Hamby who, after being purposefully scheduled to work several...

In 1993, he filed suit in Federal Court in Springfield Missouri claiming that by continually scheduling him to work on what he considered to be the Sabbath, Wal-Mart managers had violated his federal civil rights according to Article VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This federal law requires that employers reasonably accommodate religious practices that do not present an undue hardship on the employer. ("Chapter 3," p.72) This may include accommodating certain dress practices, work duties, or in the case of Mr. Hamby, time off to observe religious holy days. In order to make an accommodation for someone like Mr. Hamby, employers "may have to adjust schedules so that employees do not have to work on days when their religion forbids it,…." ("Chapter 3," p.72)
The lawsuit brought by Scott Hamby claimed that Wal-Mart did not attempt to make any reasonable accommodation for his religious…