Trump administration urges federal workers to talk religion at work

Federal employees can display religious items at work, pray in groups while not on duty and encourage co-workers to adopt their faith, according to guidance released Monday by the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal civilian workforce.

In a memo titled “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said that the government workforce should be “a welcoming place” for employees who practice a religious faith.

“Allowing religious discrimination in the Federal workplace violates the law,” Kupor said in the memo. “It also threatens to adversely impact recruitment and retention of highly-qualified employees of faith.”

Although the core of OPM’s guidance on religious expression differs little from past administrations, it “presents a substantial shift in that it encourages employees to express their religious beliefs in the workplace,” said Stefanie Camfield, associate general counsel and director of human resource services at Engage PEO.

Historically, Camfield said, employers have been advised to keep religious conversation at work to a minimum, noting that “the more religion is allowed into the workplace, the more likely it is that differences of opinion are raised.”

“In the current political environment, these types of differences have a way of turning into arguments,” Camfield said. “” In some cases, it leads to outright hostility, which makes it more likely that an employee will feel singled out and discriminated against for their beliefs.”

In the memo, Kupor outlined various activities that should not warrant disciplinary action, noting that federal employees “may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature.”

“Employees may also encourage their co-workers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage co-workers participate in other personal activities,” Kupor stated in the memo.

However, agencies may “reasonably regulate the time, place and manner of all employee speech, provided such regulations do not discriminate based on content or viewpoint (including religious viewpoints),” he added.

The OPM would also not seek to restrict federal employees’ expressions of faith in interactions with the public, such as a national park ranger leading a tour group in prayer, or a doctor with the Department of Veterans Affairs praying over a patient for their recovery, Kupor said in the memo.

While such gestures might make some citizens feel more welcome in federal settings, Camfield said, “it is equally likely to put other citizens off if they believe differently.”

“Citizens who interact with federal workers may end up perceiving themselves to be discriminated against due to the expressed beliefs of federal workers they come in contact with,” Camfield said.

The announcement builds on the Trump administration’s moves to advance faith’s presence in the federal workforce. In February, it issued an executive order geared toward “Eradicating anti-Christian Bias” and established the White House Faith Office, which aims to bolster the capacity of faith-based organizations’ to “better serve families and communities.”

Then, in mid-July, the OPM released guidance stating that telework could be considered a religious accommodation for some federal employees, including those engaging in fasting or observing religious holidays. Federal workers can also adjust their schedules around time-specific religious practices, such as prayer times, the guidance said.

Employers, including the federal government, are barred from discriminating on religious grounds under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This requires employers to accommodate religious beliefs of major faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, as well as “beliefs that are new, uncommon, not part of a formal church or sect, or only held by a small number of people.”

The new guidance can help address “the unintended consequence of all federal faith-based employee resource groups [ERGs] being suspended when diversity offices were closed across the federal government,” said Brian Grim, founding president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes faith and religious freedom for all in the workplace.

Despite the faith-friendly wording, the OPM guidance doesn’t differ significantly from that of past administrations.

For example, 1997 guidance from the Clinton administration called for agencies not to “suppress employees’ private religious speech in the workplace while leaving unregulated other private employee speech that has a comparable effect on the efficiency of the workplace.”

That guidance noted that employees may engage in private religious expression in “personal work areas not regularly open to the public,” such as art or posters at their desks. It also stated that federal workers “are permitted to engage in religious expression directed at fellow employees, and may even attempt to persuade fellow employees of the correctness of their religious views.”