Although religious freedom and expression are firmly protected in the workplace by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, President Trump’s Office of Personnel Management — following the suit of other agencies disregarding standing law and precedent — issued a memorandum titled, “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace,” which kicks open the door for a supervisor to convince their direct employees to join the religion of the supervisor.
The Trump administration’s excessive entanglement of church and state in the federal workplace is likely to lead to hostile work environments for many federal employees. And it will almost certainly lead to a rise in religion-based discrimination cases, as what should be a personal choice and belief for each worker could now create power imbalances and pressures among supervisors and employees, despite our freedom of religion.
Specifically, the recently released memorandum reads, “Employees may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature…The constitutional rights of supervisors to engage in such conversations should not be distinguished from non-supervisory employees by the nature of their supervisory roles.”
When an employee’s boss challenges their religion (or lack of religion), what is the employee to do?
Providing those in positions of power with a cover to use their position of authority to influence their employees into their own religion is deeply problematic, especially in an environment where union protections have been stripped from 1 million workers and agencies are actively terminating existing collective bargaining agreements.
As with any job, employees already feel pressure to meet the desires of their boss. However, when an employee’s boss challenges their religion (or lack of religion), what is the employee to do? The employee knows that by rejecting the advance of their supervisor, they are de facto revealing that they do not hold the same beliefs.
Our Inalienable Right to Religious Freedom
Our nation was not simply created around some flimsy notion of religious freedom. Rather, the foundation of our country is squarely enshrined in the inalienable right for all people to choose their own religion, or no religion at all. And the Trump administration is infringing on those rights — the simple suggestion that someone with power over you, your job, and your livelihood be protected to “persuade” you of the “correctness of their own religious views” in the workplace opens the door to significant religion-based-discrimination.
And of course, the cost burden for this rise in religious discrimination will fall squarely onto taxpayers through the very federal government and administration defying religious freedom, since its agencies would be responsible for investigating each religious discrimination claim.
OPM claims that this new guidance aligns with President Trump’s Executive Order titled, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,” but a prudent taxpayer might ask if these extraordinary measures are data-informed. They are not.
The current trend of charges of religious discrimination in the workplace is down. Claims of religious discrimination filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) have dropped by 74% over the past couple of years. Since reaching its peak in 2022, religion-based charges went from 19% of all charges filed, or 1-in-5 charges, down to just 4% in 2024, or 1-in-25 charges.
Religious expression in the workplace is currently protected by federal law, but the expansion of those protections to proselytizing supervisors creates an excessive entanglement between church and state that will result in more religious discrimination, not less.
Congress must exercise its constitutional authority to provide oversight over OPM and rescind this guidance.
There is a distinct difference between a supervisor hanging a cross on their office wall, and a supervisor asking their employees to abandon their religion and join the supervisor in prayer before the cross.
Dr. Kendrick Roberson is a national vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees, which is a labor union that represents over 800,000 federal employees. He leads AFGE’s civil rights department that represents members in discrimination cases (Women and Fair Practices Departments). Prior to his current position, Dr. Roberson was also a professor of labor at UCLA, and of political science at Pepperdine University.