Thanks Michael.  I obviously have not read the opinion.

But if the employee has a claim for the employer's refusal to accomodate her, 
why doesn't she have a retaliation claim for opposing its refusal to 
accommodate her?

On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:34:16 -0500
 Michael Masinter <masin...@nova.edu> wrote:
>The Eleventh Circuit's recent religious discrimination, religious  
>accommodation, and retaliation decision, Dixon v. The Hallmark  Services, 
>http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/201010047.pdf does  not foreclose a 
>reasonable accommodation claim or a disparate  treatment claim by an employee 
>forced to remove religious objects from  her workspace; to the contrary, it 
>held that the statement allegedly  made in conjunction with her discharge that 
>she was too religious was  direct evidence of discriminatory intent, and that 
>because management  was on notice of the conflict between her religious belief 
>that she  must display religious objects in her workspace and its contrary  
>policy, it was obliged to consider a reasonable accommodation unless  granting 
>one would cause undue hardship.  The court reversed summary  judgment for the 
>employer on both grounds, reasoning that the former  turned on the contested 
>question of whether the statement that the  employee was too religious
  was
>actually made, and the latter on the  case by case and as yet undeveloped 
>factual specifics of what is a  reasonable accommodation or an undue hardship.
>
>Dixon did hold that neither Title VII nor the Fair Housing Act forbids  a 
>private employer from establishing a "no religious symbols" policy,  and that 
>an objection to such a policy therefore could not support an  opposition 
>clause claim even though its application to an individual  employee with 
>contrary religiously motivated practices could support a  reasonable 
>accommodation claim.
>
>
>Michael R. Masinter                      3305 College Avenue
>Professor of Law                         Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314
>Nova Southeastern University             954.262.6151 (voice)
>masin...@nova.edu                        954.262.3835 (fax)
>
>
>
>Quoting Douglas Laycock <dlayc...@virginia.edu>:
>
>> It doesn't make sense to call religious truth claims offensive   (although 
>> that is common parlance), but it does make sense to say   that an employee 
>> who doesn't believe such a claim should not have to   display the claim or 
>> its symbols. The employee has a legitimate   interest in not appearing to 
>> promote what he considers to be a false   belief. And this interest should 
>> be well within the religious   accommodation protections of Title VII.
>>
>> Except, apparently, in the Eleventh Circuit.
>>
>> On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:47:20 -0500
>>  Eric Rassbach <erassb...@becketfund.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> I took Alan's example re re Confederate flags etc. to be raising   the 
>>> issue of hostile work environment discrimination claims. Of   course for 
>>> such a claim to be successful, a lone requirement that   employees display 
>>> something offensive would not be enough; you'd   have to show some other 
>>> pattern of discrimination on the basis of   the protected class at issue. 
>>> (Wrt the Confederate flag example, it   is certainly the case that a lot of 
>>> businesses in the South  display  Confederate battle flags and require 
>>> their employees to do  so;  though it is probably bars more than banks.)
>>>
>>> I think a religious discrimination hostile work environment claim   would 
>>> be really hard to make out based on the display of one   religion's symbol. 
>>> Competing truth claims are a feature, not a bug,   of religious life, so it 
>>> doesn't make sense to call one group's   truth claims or the symbols 
>>> representing those truth claims   "offensive" or discriminatory per se.
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu   
>>> [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene   
>>> [vol...@law.ucla.edu]
>>> Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 10:33 AM
>>> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
>>> Subject: RE: Federal regulators apparently force bank to take down        
>>> religioussymbols
>>>
>>>               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, di
 splayed
> on compa
>>  ny
>>> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
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>>
>> Douglas Laycock
>> Armistead M. Dobie Professor of Law
>> University of Virginia Law School
>> 580 Massie Road
>> Charlottesville, VA  22903
>>      434-243-8546
>> _______________________________________________
>> To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see   
>> http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
>>
>> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed   as 
>> private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that   are 
>> posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can   (rightly or 
>> wrongly) forward the messages to others.
>>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
>To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see 
>http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
>
>Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. 
> Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people 
>can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward 
>the messages to others.

Douglas Laycock
Armistead M. Dobie Professor of Law
University of Virginia Law School
580 Massie Road
Charlottesville, VA  22903
     434-243-8546
_______________________________________________
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