Supreme Court Issues Decision In Religious Freedom Case

In a stunning victory for religious freedom, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled 9-0 in favor of Gerald Groff, a Pennsylvania postal worker who refused to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays due to his Christian faith.

The unanimous decision overturns decades of flawed precedent and strengthens protections for millions of Americans of faith in the workplace.

At issue was whether the U.S. Postal Service could force Groff, a devout Christian, to work on the Sabbath. His attorney, Aaron Streett, argued that the Court needed to revisit its 1977 decision in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, which had effectively watered down Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by allowing employers to deny religious accommodations if they posed even a trivial burden.

The justices agreed.

“The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a related ruling earlier this term, underscoring the Court’s renewed commitment to constitutional clarity.

With this new ruling, employers must now demonstrate that accommodating an employee’s religious practice imposes a “significant difficulty or expense,” a far higher threshold than the old “de minimis” standard.

A Win for All Faiths

While Groff’s case centered on his Christian observance of Sunday as the Sabbath, the Court’s decision carries broad implications. Minority faith communities — including Jews, Muslims, and Hindus — have long argued that the Hardison precedent unfairly forced believers to choose between faith and livelihood.

“By allowing employers to refuse to accommodate employees’ beliefs for almost any reason, Hardison forces devout employees to make an impossible daily choice between religious duty and livelihood,” the Muslim Public Affairs Council told the Court.

This time, the justices listened.

James Phillips, a law professor at Chapman University, called the ruling a rare moment of unity across ideological lines:

“This may be one of those religious liberty cases where the right and the left are actually aligned.”

The Bigger Picture

Groff had worked as a rural carrier associate in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, filling in for absent mail carriers. When the Postal Service cut a deal with Amazon in 2013 to deliver packages seven days a week, including Sundays, Groff refused. His fight quickly became a national test case for religious rights in the workplace.

President Donald Trump’s judicial appointments have reshaped the Court into the most pro-religious liberty bench in decades. This unanimous ruling reflects that shift — a rejection of the secular progressive effort to push faith out of American public life.

With this decision, the Court has made clear: Americans do not have to check their faith at the workplace door.