Yesterday, the federal Office of Personnel Management issued a Memo (full text) to heads of federal departments and agencies on Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace. The cover letter transmitting the Memo says in part:
The memo provides clear guidance to ensure federal employees may express their religious beliefs through prayer, personal items, group gatherings, and conversations without fear of discrimination or retaliation....
The memo builds on OPMʼs July 16 guidance on reasonable accommodations for religious purposes....
The Memo itself defines kind of religious speech that should be protected in the federal workplace, saying in part:
... Employees should be permitted to display and use items used for religious purposes or icons of a religiously significant nature ... on their desks, on their person, and in their assigned workspaces.
... Agencies should allow ... employees to engage in individual or communal religious expressions in both formal and informal settings alone or with fellow employees, so long as such expressions do not occur during on-duty time...
... 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 coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers participate in other personal activities. The constitutional rights of supervisors ...should not be distinguished from non-supervisory employees.... However, unwillingness to engage in such conversations may not be the basis of workplace discipline.
... [W]hen public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, they are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline.....
Among the specific examples of protected employee speech set out in an Appendix to the Memo are:
- An employee may invite another to worship at her church despite being belonging to a different faith.
- On a bulletin board meant for personal announcements, a supervisor may post a handwritten note inviting each of his employees to attend an Easter service at his church....
- A park ranger leading a tour through a national park may join her tour group in prayer.
- A doctor at a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital may pray over his patient for her recovery.....
