Sunday, April 5, 2015
Religious Days Off
 |
| Image retrieved from Google which can be access here |
Last year Cranston School Committee made calendar changes that had negative effects on individual’s religious freedom. According to an article published by the Providence Journal, which can be accessed here, Cranston (Rhode Island) Public Schools has given teachers Good Friday, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah off for the last 25 years. Due to these new calendar changes the previously mentioned religious holidays were no longer days off. However, under the labor contracts for teachers, Public Staff can take two religious holidays of their choice off. Yet when teachers started to request Good Friday off, Cranston denied their requests. Consequently a number of teachers filed a law suit against Cranston School Department. Recently, a Superior Court Judge allowed the teachers that had requested Good Friday off to be absent from work while the case goes through court. According to an article published by the Daily News, which can be accessed here, the school allowed Jewish teachers to take Rosh Hashanah off. The School Department argued that unlike Rosh Hashanah, Good Friday does not prohibit work nor does it require a religious service. It is reported that if teachers are found under a violation they would have to pay back the State for the day off.
In Sherbert v. Verner (1963), the appellant was a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which believed that no work should be done on Saturday. For this reason, Sherbert refused to work on Saturday and got fired from her job. After Sherbert was unable to find another employment, she applied for South Carolina unemployment benefits. However, South Carolina refused to give her unemployment benefits because she refused to accept “suitable work when offered”. The Court was asked to consider whether Sherbert’s 1st Amendment right to freely exercise her religion had been violated by the State of South Carolina. The Court ruled in favor of Sherbert and believed that the State had directly burdened Sherbert’s right. Justice Brennan who delivered the Court’s opinion stated:
Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold religious views abhorrent to the authorities; nor employ the taxing power to inhibit the dissemination of particular religious views
Furthermore, the Court believed that Sherbert was being pressured into choosing between work and her religion which burdens her freedom of religion.
In this case the School Department has burdened teacher’s religious freedom by pressuring teachers to decide between their religion and their job safety. If the teachers are found to have violated the contracts then they will be penalized simply for following their religious practices. The most concerning fact about this case is that the schools have decided what a “religious day off” consist of, and they have unfairly defined it as “must prohibit work and attend a religious service”. Whether the individual can go to work or attend a religious service should not concern the School Department. Like Justice Brennan stated in Sherbert v. Verner (1963) it is not up to the government to decide whether there is a compelling religious interest nor to define religion. If the teachers are allowed to take two religious days-off then they should not be denied this right simply because the School Department has defined what constitutes as a religious days off. The school has clearly denied the individual right to freely exercise their religion belief. In addition, allowing teachers who believe in Rosh Hashanah to take a day off but not those that would like Good Friday off, the school is permitting only a few religions to practice their religious.
What do you think? Has Cranston School Department favored one religion over another? Has the teacher’s freedom to exercise religion been violated?
Tags:
0 Responses to “Religious Days Off”
Post a Comment