In Bolden-Hardge v. Office of the California State Controller, (9th Cir., April 3, 2023), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a district court's dismissal of a suit by a Jehovah's Witness who challenged California's refusal to allow her to add a paragraph to the state-employee loyalty oath specifying that by signing it she is not giving up the right to exercise her religion which requires her primary loyalty be to God. Reversing dismissal of plaintiff's Title VII claims, the court said in part:
California’s apparent rationale for the oath requirement is to ensure that if an oath taker’s religion ever comes into conflict with the federal or state constitutions, religion must yield....
[T]o exempt the Controller’s Office from a federal accommodation requirement solely because the requested accommodation would violate state law would essentially permit states to legislate away any federal accommodation obligation....
Bolden-Hardge alleges a disparate impact... She contends that her religious beliefs are “consistent with [those] of other Jehovah’s Witnesses,” who also believe that their faith forbids them from swearing primary allegiance to any human government.... [T]his belief is in tension with the loyalty oath requirement....
The loyalty oath is a business necessity, the Controller’s Office argues, because public employees must be “committed to working within and promoting the fundamental rule of law while on the job.”... It asserts that allowing addenda that indicate an oath-taker’s primary loyalty to God would render the oath meaningless and undermine critical state interests. This assertion may well prove true and, if so, the Controller’s Office may be able to defeat Bolden-Hardge’s disparate impact claim at a later stage of the litigation. But this is not apparent from the face of her Complaint,,,,
