Managing Religion in the Workplace: A Business-School Perspective

Yesterday, Forbes Magazine published an article about trickiness in handling religious matters in the workplace.

How to handle religion in the workplace is a contentious and litigious issue that many business leaders struggle with. The subject is so third-rail hot that even Harvard Business School has devoted relatively few courses and case studies to it. 

“Religion and business is considered one of the last taboos,” says Senior Lecturer Derek van Bever. “Our students have been asking for it because they see very clearly that they will be in positions of global leadership where they will have to deal with it.” 

To fill that need, van Bever wrote the case study Managing Religion in the Workplace, using two high-profile cases of religious discrimination that were argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years: one about a young Muslim woman who battled Abercrombie & Fitch for rejecting her job application because she wore a hijab for religious reasons; and the second about a baker whose religious beliefs compelled him to refuse to design a cake for a gay couple’s wedding reception.

These two legal cases received substantial attention in the news media, not surprisingly given both reached the U.S. Supreme Court.  Both the Muslim woman and the Christian baker won in the U.S. Supreme Court, though saying they "won" misses the many subtleties.

In the first case, the Supreme Court ruled that Abercrombie mistreated the Muslim woman, but it did not rule that businesses have to agree to all religion-related requests from employees.  The issue is whether the business makes "reasonable accommodation" for the request.  It was deemed that Abercrombie did not in this instance.

In the second case, the Supreme Court ruled that there was inappropriate hostility toward the baker by the state of Colorado's employment commission, but it did not clarify whether or not bakers can refuse service to gay couples.  Confusion remains.

Read the entire article.  What do you think of the court rulings?  What lessons do you learn from these two cases?