November 24, 2025 Table of Contents
Religious discrimination at work is illegal in California. Your employer cannot treat you worse because of your faith, or because you have no faith, and it must make reasonable room for your religious practices. Below, we explain what counts as religious discrimination, how to recognize it, which deadlines apply, and what to do if it happens to you.
What counts as religious discrimination at work in California?
It is illegal for an employer to refuse to hire you, fire you, or treat you differently in pay or job conditions because of your religious creed, under Government Code section 12940(a). The same law bans religious harassment and requires employers to accommodate your religious practices unless that would cause an undue hardship.
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Key Takeaways
- The Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) makes religious creed a protected category in Government Code section 12940(a). It applies to private employers with five or more employees and all public employers, according to the Civil Rights Department (CRD) fact sheet.
- Religious harassment is illegal under section 12940(j)(1), and your employer must take reasonable steps to prevent it (§ 12940(k)).
- Your employer must accommodate your religious belief or observance, including dress and grooming, unless it can show undue hardship (§ 12940(l)).
- Your employer cannot retaliate against you for asking for an accommodation, even if it says no (§ 12940(l)(4)).
- You generally have three years to contact the CRD, but only 300 days for a federal EEOC charge in California.
Is This Your Situation?
Many workers do not realize they are protected until something goes wrong. These are common signs of religious discrimination at work:
- You were passed over, demoted, or fired, and comments about your faith came up around the same time.
- Coworkers or a supervisor mock your prayer, clothing, or beliefs, and management does nothing.
- Your manager refused time off for a Sabbath or holy day without discussing any options.
- Someone told you to remove a head covering, shave a beard, or take off religious jewelry.
- Your hours, shifts, or reviews got worse right after you raised a religious concern.
If any of these sound familiar, you may have one of the religious discrimination claims California law recognizes. Religion is also one of several categories covered in our overview of workplace discrimination protections.
What Counts as Religious Discrimination at Work?
Religious discrimination at work happens when an employer treats you worse because of your religious creed, allows harassment based on it, refuses a reasonable accommodation, or punishes you for raising the issue. California law covers each of these separately. The sections below take them one at a time.
The state enforces these rules. In a May 2026 announcement, the CRD said it has investigated hundreds of religious discrimination complaints in employment. It has also secured more than 80 settlements since 2020.
Who and What the Law Protects
The definition is broad. Government Code section 12926(q) says religious creed includes “all aspects of religious belief, observance, and practice, including religious dress and grooming practices.” The CRD explains that a belief is protected when you sincerely hold it and it occupies a place of importance in your life. You do not need to belong to a large or well-known religion.
The protection also reaches further than many people expect. According to the CRD fact sheet, it covers job applicants, employees, interns, and volunteers. It applies to your actual religion and to the religion someone thinks you have. It even covers your association with people of a certain faith, such as a friend, family member, or colleague.
Unequal Treatment
Section 12940(a) makes it unlawful to “refuse to hire or employ” someone, to “discharge” them, or to discriminate against them “in compensation or in terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” because of religious creed. That covers hiring, firing, pay, promotions, schedules, and discipline.
Stereotypes count. For example, the CRD describes an employer passing over a qualified employee for a promotion based on the stereotype that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have large families and may request parental leave. The CRD also lists refusing to let a Jewish employee wear a Star of David necklace when other jewelry is allowed.
Religious Harassment
The CRD defines harassment as “severe or pervasive unwelcome words or actions directed at someone because of their religious creed.” One CRD example is someone making loud noises to disrupt an employee during silent prayer in the breakroom. Insults about religious clothing and jokes about prayer routines can also add up to a hostile work environment.
Your employer is responsible even when a coworker does the harassing. Under section 12940(j)(1), coworker harassment is unlawful for the employer if it “knows or should have known” about it and “fails to take immediate and appropriate corrective action.” In addition, section 12940(k) requires employers to take “all reasonable steps necessary to prevent discrimination and harassment from occurring.”
Retaliation
Your employer cannot punish you for opposing religious discrimination (§ 12940(h)) or for asking for an accommodation, “regardless of whether the request was granted” (§ 12940(l)(4)). The CRD gives the example of a Jehovah’s Witness moved to an undesirable shift after complaining that music played at work went against his faith. Cut hours, worse shifts, or a sudden write-up can all point to unlawful retaliation. If your employer fired you for speaking up, you may also have a wrongful termination claim.
Your Right to Religious Accommodation
California requires employers to accommodate your religious belief or observance unless doing so would cause undue hardship. Under section 12940(l)(1), your employer must show that it “explored any available reasonable alternative means” of accommodating you. The statute names two examples: excusing you from the duties that conflict with your belief, or having those duties done at another time or by another person.
The same section defines religious observance to include a Sabbath or other holy day. It even covers reasonable travel time before and after a religious observance. A CRD regulation, 2 CCR § 11062(a), adds job restructuring, job reassignment, and changes to work practices. It also lists “allowing time off in an amount equal to the amount of non-regularly scheduled time the employee has worked.” In other words, making up the hours at another time can be an accommodation.
Religious Dress and Grooming
California law protects religious dress and grooming in specific terms. According to section 12926(q), dress includes religious clothing, head or face coverings, jewelry, and artifacts. Grooming includes “all forms of head, facial, and body hair” that are part of your religious observance. The statute requires a broad reading of both terms.
There is one more important limit on employers. Section 12940(l)(2) says a dress or grooming accommodation “is not reasonable if the accommodation requires segregation of the individual from other employees or the public.” So an employer cannot “accommodate” your turban or hijab by hiding you in a back room.
Examples of Accommodations
The CRD fact sheet gives these examples:
| Conflict | Accommodation the CRD describes |
|---|---|
| A job interview falls during daily prayer | Scheduling the interview to avoid a Muslim applicant’s prayer time |
| A uniform requires pants | Allowing a Pentecostal Christian employee to wear a long skirt instead |
| The schedule includes Saturdays | Scheduling a Seventh-day Adventist employee’s day off on Saturday |
| Staff meetings open with a prayer | Letting an atheist employee join late without penalty so they do not have to take part |
These are examples, not a complete list. The CRD also gives a contrasting example: refusing even to consider a shift change so an employee with Native American spiritual beliefs can attend a ritual ceremony.
Can Your Employer Ever Say No to an Accommodation?
Yes, but only in limited cases. Your employer can refuse if the accommodation would cause an undue hardship, meaning “significant difficulty or expense” under section 12926(u). However, the employer has to prove it, and the law weighs specific factors.
Those factors include the nature and cost of the accommodation and the type of operations. They also include the size and financial resources of the facility and of the whole company. In short, a request that would sink a five-person shop may be manageable for a large chain.
Two more limits apply. First, the law does not require an accommodation that would violate FEHA or another civil rights law (§ 12940(l)(3)). Second, a refusal does not end the employer’s duty. The CRD says that an employer that shows undue hardship “must continue communicating” with you to look for other accommodations.
California Law vs. Federal Law After Groff v. DeJoy
Federal law, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, also bans religious discrimination and requires accommodation. In Groff v. DeJoy (June 29, 2023), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the old “more than a de minimis cost” test. Instead, an employer “must show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.”
The Court also said that a hardship caused by coworkers’ hostility to a religion “cannot be considered ‘undue.'” It added that an employer must consider other options, such as voluntary shift swapping. Keep in mind that Groff interprets federal law only. California claims use the FEHA standard.
| California (FEHA) | Federal (Title VII) | |
|---|---|---|
| Employers covered | Private employers with 5 or more employees, and all public employers (CRD) | 15 or more employees (EEOC) |
| Undue hardship test | “Significant difficulty or expense,” weighed against listed factors | “Substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business” |
| Dress and grooming | Written into the statute and read broadly | Covered under the general accommodation duty (EEOC) |
| Hiding you from the public | Expressly not a reasonable accommodation for dress or grooming | Also barred: the EEOC says Title VII prohibits moving you to a non-customer job because of customer preference |
| General filing deadline | 3 years to contact the CRD | 300 days for an EEOC charge in California |
Courts apply each test to the facts of the case. Which law fits better depends on your employer’s size and what happened.
Three Examples of How the Rules Work
These examples are simplified to show how the rules apply. They are not predictions about any real case.
Example 1: A Sabbath conflict. A warehouse with 40 employees rotates everyone through Saturday shifts. An employee who observes a Saturday Sabbath asks to be excused. Under section 12940(l)(1), the employer must explore options. Two examples are having another worker cover those shifts or letting the employee make up the hours on another day. Simply answering “everyone works Saturdays” without looking at alternatives is a warning sign.
Example 2: A turban and a host stand. A manager tells a restaurant host who wears a turban that he can keep it only if he moves to the kitchen, out of customer view. Section 12940(l)(2) says a dress accommodation that segregates someone from the public is not reasonable. As a result, the offer to move him does not satisfy the law.
Example 3: Two very different deadlines. A company fires an employee on March 2, 2026, after she complains about religious jokes from her supervisor. Her general deadline to submit a CRD intake form is March 2, 2029, three years later. Her federal EEOC deadline is 300 days later, which lands on Sunday, December 27, 2026. Because the EEOC extends deadlines that fall on a weekend to the next business day, she would have until Monday, December 28, 2026. The federal window closes more than two years earlier.
What to Do If You Face Religious Discrimination at Work
- Put requests and complaints in writing. Describe the conflict or the conduct and what would fix it. The CRD lists reasonable notice to the employer as a factor in accommodation cases, so a dated email helps show what your employer knew and when.
- Keep a record of everything. Save emails, texts, schedules, and notes of comments with dates and names of witnesses. Our article on documenting workplace misconduct shows what to keep and how.
- Report harassment through your employer’s process. Your employer’s duty to correct coworker harassment depends on what it knew or should have known. Get a free case review early. Do not delay your report to do it.
- Ask what alternatives your employer considered. If your employer denies an accommodation, the law requires it to have explored options first. A written answer, or no answer at all, can become evidence later.
- Watch for changes after you speak up. Note any new write-ups, schedule cuts, or demotions with dates. Timing often matters in a retaliation claim.
- Talk to a lawyer before you resign or sign anything. Quitting or signing a release can affect your options.
Deadlines That Matter
The deadlines below are general rules, not your exact deadline. The facts of your case can change the date.
| Step | General deadline | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Submit an intake form to the CRD | 3 years from the date you were last harmed | CRD complaint process |
| File a lawsuit after a CRD right-to-sue notice | 1 year from the date of the notice | CRD right-to-sue instructions |
| File a federal charge with the EEOC in California | 300 calendar days from the discrimination | EEOC time limits |
One trap catches many workers. Requesting a right-to-sue notice early starts the one-year lawsuit clock right away. For that reason, speak with a lawyer before you take that step. If you were fired, our article on wrongful termination deadlines in California covers related time limits.
When to Talk to a Lawyer
Consider a case review if you lost a job or promotion after your faith came up, if harassment continued after you reported it, or if your employer refused an accommodation without discussing options. You should also get advice if a deadline in the table above is getting close.
At Abramson Labor Group, we represent California employees, never employers. Zev Abramson founded the firm in 2015, and our office is at 1700 W Burbank Blvd, Burbank, CA 91506. We serve clients in English and Spanish, and we hold a 4.5-star rating across more than 1,900 Google reviews (as of September 2026).
Our case reviews are free and confidential, and we work on contingency. Request your free case evaluation or call us at (213) 493-6300.
Frequently Asked Questions
Am I protected if I am not religious?
Yes. 2 CCR § 11060(a), a state regulation, covers job benefits denied because of “religious creed or lack of religious creed.” The CRD fact sheet also gives an example of accommodating an atheist employee: letting them join staff meetings late, without penalty, so they do not have to take part in an opening prayer.
Can my employer reject a job applicant over a religious conflict?
Not without meeting the accommodation rules. Section 12940(l)(1) bars an employer from refusing to hire someone because their religious belief or observance conflicts with a job requirement. The same undue hardship rules apply to applicants.
What if my coworkers complain about my accommodation?
Under federal law, Groff v. DeJoy held that a hardship caused by coworkers’ hostility to a religion cannot count as undue. Under California law, your employer still has to show significant difficulty or expense, measured by the factors in section 12926(u). The EEOC’s compliance manual adds that acting on “the discriminatory preferences of others, including coworkers or customers, is unlawful.”
Do I need a letter from my pastor, imam, or rabbi?
Usually not. The EEOC’s compliance manual is federal guidance. It says an employer is justified in seeking more information if it has “an objective basis for questioning” a belief’s religious nature or sincerity. The manual adds that protected beliefs can be “new, uncommon, not part of a formal church or sect.” If your employer reasonably needs more information, the EEOC says the two of you “should engage in an interactive process to discuss the request.”
This article is general information about California law, not legal advice. Every situation is different. For advice about your specific case, talk to a licensed California employment attorney.