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Friday, April 08, 2011
Sunday Closing Laws and Saturday Observers
Earlier this week, the Eighth Circuit decided a Title VII religious accommodation case, Harrell v. Donahue. The plaintiff there, Hosea Harrell, delivered mail for the Post Office. As a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian who observed Saturday as his Sabbath, he tried to work out some informal arrangement with the Post Office where he could take Saturdays off. When that failed, he brought suit under Title VII. The Eighth Circuit here dismisses his claims fairly quickly under the familiar “undue burden” standard of TWA v. Hardison.
This is a pretty ordinary case, but it provides a really nice, tidy, concrete illustration of how Sunday closing laws can end up affecting Saturday observers. The Post Office is closed on Sundays. If it were open on Sundays, Harrell could surely get out of working Saturdays—there would be Christians willing to trade their Sunday shifts for his Saturday shift. But Christians get Sunday off automatically (as it were), so no one is interested in trading with Harrell.
Posted by Chris Lund on April 8, 2011 at 02:02 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Thanks, Len. Our Supreme Court upheld the Sunday closing laws in two old cases, Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961) and McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961). But the issue continues to arise in all sorts of ways. And we here at Wayne State have had the same debate you have had over the Jewish holidays--we're having it right now, actually, as due to snow days, classes have been adminstratively rescheduled for the first night of Passover.
I realize it's almost criminal that we don't know each other, with me teaching at Wayne State and you teaching at Windsor. We should totally find a way to get together. I'd be happy to come to Windsor sometime if you wanted to get together for lunch--I'd love to meet you and see the school.... Best, Chris
Posted by: Chris Lund | Apr 12, 2011 10:34:44 AM
Chris,
This same issue was dealt with by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Big M Drug Mart, 1 S.C.R. 295 (1985), where Chief Justice Dickson spoke at length about the impact of Sunday closing laws on Saturday sabbath observers. There is also a Wikipedia page on the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._v._Big_M_Drug_Mart_Ltd.
In a related issue, my law school voted a few years ago to end accommodations made to Jewish students under which the law school was closed for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (this had been the norm for at least 15 years previous). Some of my colleagues felt that this accommodation unfairly privileged Jewish students over other minority students and sought to overturn it. When those opposed to maintaining the accommodation were asked whether Christian students were being privileged over non-Christian students by having the law school close on their holidays, such as Easter and Christmas, their response was that those days (like Sundays in some states) are "official" and governmentally-recognized holidays, which meant, in their view, that no preference was being given to the Christian students by having the law school close on those days. Interestingly, my university schedules some exams on Saturdays, but not on Sundays.
What one ought to ask in the Sunday closing cases and in my other example, both of which have the effect of sanctioning the religious observance of a dominant group, is WHY a distinction is being drawn. This was asked and answered by Chief Justice Dickson in Big M. The answer to that question will then determine whether discrimination has occurred on religious grounds.
At the end of the day, government-sanctioned differential treatment is still differential treatment, whether it is provided to religious majorities or minorities. The key question is whether it can or ought to be justified in the circumstances.
Thanks for raising the issue.
Regards,
Len
Posted by: Len Rotman | Apr 10, 2011 5:59:20 PM
The debate over Sunday mail in the early 19th Century provides added context to the matter.
Posted by: Joe | Apr 9, 2011 10:42:36 AM
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