Religion

Title VII of the Civil Rights act of 1964 targets the practice of employment discrimination based on many discernible qualities including religion. A person's religion is his or her declared or practiced spiritual faith or heritage. Title VII makes it illegal for an employer to involve religion in the workplace or application process in any way, as this may be a factor which unfairly influences a prospective employee's eligibility or treatment in the workplace.

Religion based employment discrimination involves the mistreatment of a person or persons based on their particular religion. Religion itself may be broadly defined. For example, a person's religion may be a practiced or declared belief which they may openly discuss or advertise through religious symbols present on their person or workspace. Additionally, a person's religion may be associative. For example, a person of Islamic or Jewish descent may not need to be a practicing member of the faith to be the subject of religious discrimination in the workplace. If a person with strong associations to religious culture is mistreated in the workplace or denied far candidacy based on these associations, he or she is protected under Title VII and may seek intervention and remedy from the appropriate authority.

Religious discrimination by association may also carry over into family members and spouses. If an employee is mistreated based on their familial ties to a member of a particular religion such as a spouse or in-law, he or she is protected under Title VII as well.

As well as barring certain individuals from employment or slanting the application process, a person may sue or claim employment discrimination based on their treatment in the workplace. For example, a person of a particular religious demographic may be hired by a company, but mistreated by a supervisor or co-worker directly for their religion. This conduct is harassment and is illegal under title VII. Frequent harassment may constitute a hostile work environment which renders an employee unable to fulfill their job requirements. In this instance, an individual is eligible to sue for wrongful termination in addition to their claims of religious employment discrimination.