Florida law, as well as federal law, prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals because of their religion. The law protects employees of companies with 15 or more employees. All governmental employers are barred from committing religious bias.

Your protection against religious discrimination includes:

1. Employers cannot discriminate against individuals because of their religion when hiring, firing, or negotiating other terms and conditions of the employment;

2. Employees cannot be forced to participate, or not participate, in a religious activity as a condition of employment;

3. Employers must permit employees to engage in religious expression, unless the religious expression would impose an undue hardship on the employer;

4. Employers must reasonably accommodate employees’ religious practices unless such accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer; and

5. Employers must attempt to prevent religious harassment of their employees. It is wise for employers to implement an anti-harassment policy and a reporting procedure.

Employers are also barred from imposing additional requirements on workers receiving religious accommodations. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines require employers to provide reasonable accommodations in a wide variety of circumstances, including when:

Religious obligations conflict with work schedules, such as working on the Sabbath.

Dress or grooming standards clash with religious beliefs.

Objections to medical examinations conflict with spiritual beliefs.

An employee who sincerely believes that his or her religion prohibits or requires certain activities is entitled to accommodations, even when the religion lacks such formal rules.

Although federal law places limits on how much money can be awarded for emotional pain and suffering in job bias cases, Florida's own laws do not impose this restriction. As such complaints of religious discrimination should be filed with the Florida Commission on Human Relations, as well as with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

To ensure that your legal rights are preserved, complaints of religious discrimination must be filed with governmental agencies within relatively short time periods. Since governmental agencies file few discrimination lawsuits, employees are permitted to hire private attorneys to seek legal recourse against employers they believe discriminated against them.