In a press statement issued last month and later uploaded to Westlaw, the N.C. Detective Agency, a Durham-based security firm, has agreed to pay $65,231 in compensatory damages and back wages along with additional corrective measures to voluntarily resolve a religious discrimination investigation conducted by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced.
The EEOC’s inquiry determined there was reasonable cause to believe a Muslim employee asked to be excused from work for a religious holiday, but the request was denied. The company knew about the employee’s need for a religious accommodation, yet it did not engage in the legally required interactive process, and she was terminated in June 2025 after failing to report for duty.
And from another press release dated about two weeks later, also posted on Westlaw:
Reynolds IGA Foodliner, Inc., the owner and operator of a chain of grocery stores, will pay $65,000 and provide other equitable relief to settle a religious discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.
According to the suit, shortly after she was hired as a deli clerk at the Piggly Wiggly store in Hazlehurst, Georgia, the employee requested Sundays off to observe her Sabbath. The employee’s supervisor denied the request, arguing that granting Sundays off would require extending the same concession to all other employees. The employee continued to pursue the accommodation, and she was fired in January 2025.
More from the second press release:
“Employers cannot refuse religious accommodation requests merely to avoid upsetting other staff,” said Marcus G. Keegan, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Atlanta District. “The EEOC remains committed to enforcing federal anti-discrimination law and protecting workers’ rights to religious freedom.”
Darrell E. Graham, director of the EEOC’s Atlanta District, added, “Employers must assess each request for religious accommodation on its own merits and make reasonable, good-faith efforts to honor their employees’ religious beliefs. Employers should be mindful of their legal obligation to provide reasonable accommodations unless doing so would create an undue hardship.”
Finally, from a third press release released last month (it appeared between the first two releases, but was again posted on Westlaw); this one concerns a lawsuit rather than a settlement:
Blue Bell Creameries, Inc., a Brenham, Texas-based producer and distributor of frozen snacks with a production facility in Sylacauga, Alabama, has been charged by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) with unlawfully terminating a Jewish body shop technician after he requested a beard-related religious accommodation.
Even supporters of bans on religious discrimination by private employers might wrestle with whether employers should be required to grant religious exemptions from generally applicable rules (exemptions that could themselves be seen as discrimination in favor of religious observers). Yet Congress has indeed mandated such exemptions: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as amended in 1972, generally requires employers to accommodate requests for exemptions from broadly applied work rules for religious objectors, unless providing such accommodations would impose an undue hardship on the employer.
That includes time off for religious holidays: in fact, the leading recent case on this topic, Groff v. DeJoy, involved a Christian employee seeking an exemption from working Sundays. And, as must be the case, the protection extends to adherents of all faiths.
