The Persistence of Neutrality: The Failure of the Religious Accommodation Provision to Redeem Title Vii

Texas Law Review, Vol. 76, No. 2 (1997).

Posted: 29 Oct 1997

See all articles by Karen Engle

Karen Engle

University of Texas at Austin - School of Law

Abstract

This article addresses recent scholarly proposals to expand the scope of Title VII to include rights of employees to dress, groom or speak in accordance with what they consider their culture. Such proposals often suggest that Title VII's religious accommodation provision would provide a good model for reinterpreting race, national origin or sex. They fail, however, to consider seriously how courts have interpreted religion over the years. This article compares the doctrine developed in race, national origin and sex discrimination cases with the religious accommodation doctrine. It argues that courts in the religion cases either follow the integrationist approach of the race and national origin cases or the separationist approach of the sex cases. The inability of religious accommodation to overcome integrationist and separationist ideology is one of many examples of the dominance of the nondiscrimination/neutrality norm in American law (and society). The article concludes by cautioning legal reformers against valorizing models that they propose for comparison. In this case, the deployment of the religious accommodation model as a critique of race, national origin and sex discrimination doctrine has obscured not only the recalcitrance of neutrality, but also of the distinction between status and conduct and the deference that courts have long given to the rights of employers to fashion their workplace.

Suggested Citation

Engle, Karen, The Persistence of Neutrality: The Failure of the Religious Accommodation Provision to Redeem Title Vii. Texas Law Review, Vol. 76, No. 2 (1997)., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=11518

Karen Engle (Contact Author)

University of Texas at Austin - School of Law ( email )

727 East Dean Keeton Street
Austin, TX 78705
United States

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