Alan: Can you flesh out the discrimination theory more? I take
it that the claim is that requiring everyone to display something would
constitute discrimination (not just failure to accommodate religious beliefs,
or creation of an allegedly hostile environment), and that this would trigger a
requirement of exemption even outside the context of religious discrimination,
where such exemption is statutorily required - is that right? It seems like an
odd sort of discrimination claim, but I'd like to hear more about it. (I take
it that this would practically be of some more importance because some
companies include in their corporate symbols items that some people may find
offensive based on membership in various groups, whether the symbols are
religious, allegedly racially offensive, and so on - consider the litigation
over Sambo's Restaurants, or the use of American Indian symbols, or other
things that might well be a part of company logos, displayed on company
vehicles, and so on.)
By the way, some jurisdictions ban discrimination based on
political affiliation, and of course government entities are generally barred
by the First Amendment from certain kinds of discrimination based on political
affiliation. Would requiring all employees to display company symbols that are
opposed by one or another political party constitute forbidden political
affiliation discrimination?
Eugene
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2010 4:36 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Federal regulators apparently force bank to take down
religioussymbols
Do you think there is a discrimination issue as well as an accommodation issue
in cases like this, Eugene. Suppose a bank in a southern state insists that all
employees have confederate flags on their desks or work stations? Does an
African-American employee have a claim under Title VII? What about displays
that proclaim the superiority or virtue of the "white" race?
Alan
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