Is Refusal to Support Christian Employee Group Religious Discrimination?

May an employer refuse to provide religious employee groups the same support it provides racial/ethnic groups under a diversity initiative?

A Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals case decided a few months ago addressed this question, concluding that the employer, GM, could do so without violating the religious discrimination prohibition of Title VII of the Civil Rights act of 1964.

The facts of the case were:

• GM has an “Affinity Group program.”
• Affinity Groups are eligible for resources including use of company funds, facilities and equipment for group activities.
• This program has several diversity goals, including supporting diverse employees, improving performance, and better serving diverse market segments.
• Program guidelines describe eligible groups as being “typically created around an aspect of common social identity that influences how others see them at GM.”
• GM’s diversity program currently recognizes nine Affinity Groups: People with Disabilities, African Ancestry Network, GM Plus (for gay and lesbian persons), the North American Women’s Advisory Council, the GM Hispanic Initiative Team, the GM Asian Indian Affinity Group, the GM Chinese Affinity Group, the GM Mid-East/South-East Asian Affinity Group, and the Veterans Affinity Group.
• Affinity Group membership is voluntary and must be open to all current, salaried, full-time employees who share a group’s goals.
• An employee applied for company support of an interdenominational Christian employee group.
• GM refused, pointing to its guidelines for diversity affinity groups, which specifically exclude any that “promote or advocate particular religious or political positions.”

The Court’s reasoning:

“The central question in any employment-discrimination case is whether the employer would have taken the same action had the employee been of a different race (age, sex, religion, national origin, etc.) and everything else had remained the same.” . .

Here, . . . General Motors would have taken the same action had [the plaintiff] possessed a different religious position. . . . [T]he company has never approved an Affinity Group based on any other religion, nor would the Guidelines allow it to do so.

Instead, [the plaintiff] argues that General Motors’s refusal to grant Affinity Group status to any group that promotes or advocates a religious position means that it treats “nonreligious” employees more favorably than religious employees.

General Motors, however, has never recognized an Affinity Group that promotes or advocates any religious position, even one of religious indifference or opposition to religion. Nor . . . would the Guidelines allow it to do so. The Guidelines preclude recognition of Affinity Groups based on any religious “position,” including agnosticism, atheism, and secular humanism. The Guidelines also prohibit General Motors from recognizing . . . a group organized on the basis of “nonreligion.”

Simply stated, General Motors’s Affinity Group
policy treats all religious positions alike.

Thought questions:

Does the court’s logic mean an employer with such a program that did recognize certain religious groups would violate Title VII if it did not also allow an atheist group?

What about a Jewish cultural-ethnic group? Lots of Israelis are officially “Jewish,” yet not religious. Lots of Americans are of Jewish ancestry and interested in topics such as U.S. policy towards Israel, holocaust studies, and Jewish geneology, yet not religiously Jewish. So couldn’t such a group, if not focused on religious practice, but just cultural identity, fly under the GM guidelines (a “Jewish ancestry network,” much like the “African Ancestry Network”)? If GM refused such a group, would it be merely inconsistent with its own policy or would it be engaging in religious discrimination? National origin discrimination (Africa vs. ancient Israel and Judah)?

And now the HR policy question: Is an employer really accomplishing anything useful by promoting “affinity groups,” or is it doing more harm than good by encouraging divisiveness and cliques?

See HR.BLR.com“Refusal to Support Employee Group: Religious Discrimination?”

Case opinion: Moranski v. General Motors Corp.,, No. 05-1803 (7th Cir. 12/29/05) (.pdf).

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