State-Law Illegality Is Not Automatically “Undue Hardship” Under Title VII: Justice Gorsuch’s Preemption-Based Critique in Doe v. Hochul

I. Introduction

Doe v. Hochul arises out of New York’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for healthcare workers and, more specifically, New York’s decision to retain a medical exemption while eliminating a religious exemption. The plaintiffs—healthcare workers terminated after refusing vaccination on religious grounds—brought suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging their employers failed to reasonably accommodate their religious exercise.

The legal issue emphasized in Justice Gorsuch’s dissent is narrow but consequential: whether an employer automatically establishes Title VII’s “undue hardship” defense merely by showing that a requested religious accommodation would require the employer to violate a state regulation (and thereby risk fines or licensure consequences)—even when the state regime is alleged to be unconstitutional.

Although the Supreme Court declined review, the dissent frames the case as part of a recurring post-pandemic conflict: frontline healthcare workers disciplined or fired for religious noncompliance with vaccine mandates, and courts treating state-law constraints as dispositive of federal accommodation duties.

II. Summary of the Opinion (Denial of Certiorari and the Dissent)

The Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari without merits explanation. Justice Gorsuch dissented, arguing the Second Circuit adopted a rule inconsistent with Title VII’s structure and federal supremacy: that a state law prohibiting an accommodation can categorically supply an “undue hardship” defense under federal law.

Justice Gorsuch’s dissent proceeds in three moves:

• Statutory text and preemption: Title VII anticipates preemption of inconsistent state laws and includes provisions intended to prevent state mandates from forcing unlawful employment practices.
• Analogy to other civil-rights accommodation regimes: Courts interpreting “reasonable accommodation/modification” (ADA, FHA, Rehabilitation Act) generally reject the notion that state law defines federal reasonableness—warning that such a rule would let states displace federal guarantees.
• Doctrinal consistency and practical stakes: The dissent argues the Second Circuit’s approach risks allowing states to “strip” federally protected civil rights by banning accommodations, and it highlights that multiple circuits employ similar reasoning, making Supreme Court intervention warranted.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1. Pandemic-era religious objector litigation

• Doe v. Mills, 595 U. S. 1029 (2021) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting from denial of application for injunctive relief)
  The dissent uses Doe v. Mills to situate this case in an established pattern: healthcare workers lauded as “front line” participants later losing employment for religious adherence. It serves more as contextual precedent than a controlling Title VII holding.
• Dr. A. v. Hochul, 595 U. S. ___ (2021) (Dr. A. I) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting from denial of application for injunctive relief)
  Cited to describe New York’s shifting exemption policy and to supply factual background regarding objections tied to “abortion-derived fetal cell lines.”
• Dr. A. v. Hochul, 597 U. S. ___ (2022) (Dr. A. II) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari)
  Invoked to show the Court has repeatedly declined to take up closely related disputes from New York, underscoring recurrence.

2. Title VII’s “undue hardship” standard

• Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U. S. 447 (2023)
  The dissent relies on Groff for the governing definition: for a hardship to be “undue,” it must be “substantial in the overall context of [the] employer’s business.” This matters because the Second Circuit treated state-law noncompliance risk as automatically sufficient, without the kind of contextual, fact-bound inquiry Groff suggests.

3. The Second Circuit’s rule crystallized and extended

• Russo v. Patchogue-Medford School Dist., 129 F. 4th 182 (2025) (per curiam)
  Justice Gorsuch treats Russo as decisive evidence that the Second Circuit’s position is categorical: an accommodation that would require violating state law “necessarily” imposes an undue hardship—even if the state law is “unconstitutional as applied.” This citation rebuts the federal government’s suggestion that the decision below was merely unclear rather than adopting a firm rule.

4. Federal accommodation regimes rejecting state-law control

• Alexander v. Choate, 469 U. S. 287 (1985)
  Cited (alongside statutory accommodation provisions) to ground the idea that civil-rights statutes often require affirmative adjustments—accommodations or modifications—rather than merely forbidding intentional discrimination.
• Mary Jo C. v. New York State and Local Retirement System, 707 F. 3d 144 (CA2 2013)
  A key intra-circuit comparator: the Second Circuit there rejected the argument that state law controls what constitutes a “reasonable accommodation” under federal disability law, warning that letting state law dictate federal reasonableness would displace the federal guarantee.
• National Federation of the Blind v. Lamone, 813 F. 3d 494 (CA4 2016) and T. B. v. San Diego Unified School Dist., 806 F. 3d 451 (CA9 2015)
  These cases reinforce the dissent’s cross-circuit proposition: state-law constraints are not dispositive of federal accommodation duties.
• Barber v. Colorado Dept. of Revenue, 562 F. 3d 1222 (CA10 2009) (quoting Quinones v. Evanston, 58 F. 3d 275 (CA7 1995))
  Used for a sharper formulation: state law foreclosing accommodations may be less a “defense to liability under federal law” than “a source of liability under federal law.” In other words, state-law noncompliance may reveal or intensify the conflict with federal rights.

5. “Necessity” and anti-nullification logic under the ADA

• Campbell v. Universal City Development Partners, Ltd., 72 F. 4th 1245 (2023)
  The dissent’s doctrinal centerpiece by analogy. There, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the argument that state law can define what is “necessary” under ADA Title III, warning that states could “nullify the ADA by enacting a state law requiring discrimination.” Justice Gorsuch argues the same anti-nullification principle should apply to Title VII’s “undue hardship” defense.

6. Evidence of a broader, recurring issue across circuits

• Bowlin v. Board of Directors, Judah Christian School, 167 F. 4th 469 (CA7 2026)
• Lowe v. Mills, 68 F. 4th 706 (CA1 2023)
• United States v. Board of Educ. for School Dist. of Philadelphia, 911 F. 2d 882 (CA3 1990)
• Bhatia v. Chevron U. S. A., Inc., 734 F. 2d 1382 (CA9 1984)

These citations are deployed to show the Second Circuit is not an outlier. The dissent frames the question as “important and recurring,” with multiple circuits using similar state-law-driven reasoning to resolve federal accommodation defenses.

7. Recent Supreme Court statement on state immunity versus federal causes of action

• Doe v. Dynamic Physical Therapy, LLC, 607 U. S. 11 (2025)
  Justice Gorsuch treats this per curiam reversal as near-direct support for the corrective principle he would apply: states may define the scope of state-law liability, but “a State has no power to confer immunity from federal causes of action.” The dissent suggests the Court could have “summarily reversed” here on the same logic.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. The Second Circuit’s move: state-law violation risk equals “undue hardship” as a matter of law

Justice Gorsuch describes the court below as assuming the plaintiffs had “plausibly alleged a prima facie case of Title VII religious discrimination,” yet holding the employers prevail on the undue hardship defense because accommodating religious objectors would require violating New York’s regulation and risking penalties and licensure consequences.

The dissent’s criticism is not that compliance costs and licensure risk can never matter; rather, it challenges the categorical nature of the rule: state-law prohibition automatically and conclusively determines the federal defense.

2. Title VII’s preemption architecture

The dissent emphasizes two textual features:

• 42 U. S. C. §2000h-4: the Civil Rights Act “shall be construed as invalidating any provision of State law” inconsistent with the Act’s purposes.
• 42 U. S. C. §2000e-7: Title VII does not “exempt or relieve” any person from state-law consequences where the state law “purports to require or permit” what would be an unlawful employment practice under Title VII—language the dissent reads as anticipating conflict and disallowing state-law displacement of federal rights.

Against that backdrop, Justice Gorsuch argues it is conceptually inverted to treat state law as an automatic trigger for a federal defense, because Title VII anticipates that federal law will sometimes displace contrary state mandates—and correspondingly protect employers from being forced into discrimination.

3. Structural argument: preventing “state nullification” of federal civil-rights guarantees

The dissent’s core principle is anti-nullification: if a state can defeat federal accommodation duties simply by prohibiting accommodations, then states can effectively rewrite federal civil-rights protections.

This logic draws force from the ADA and related accommodation regimes: federal courts routinely refuse to let state law dictate what federal law requires. Justice Gorsuch argues there is no coherent reason to treat Title VII’s “undue hardship” differently from ADA “reasonable accommodation” or ADA “necessity.”

4. The dissent’s procedural posture argument: this was an easy vehicle

Despite the pandemic’s waning, Justice Gorsuch argues the legal question persists and has concrete consequences for terminated workers. He also points to the federal government’s amicus position—“Title VII preempts state laws that are incompatible with it”—as confirmation that the issue is significant. Finally, he suggests that, in light of Doe v. Dynamic Physical Therapy, LLC, the Court could have resolved the matter quickly.

C. Impact

1. Immediate legal effect

Because certiorari was denied, the Second Circuit’s judgment remains in place, and no nationwide rule was announced. The dissent, however, signals to litigants and lower courts that:

• there is a serious question whether “state-law illegality” can be treated as per se “undue hardship” under Title VII;
• the issue has cross-statute implications (Title VII, ADA, FHA, Rehabilitation Act); and
• the Supreme Court may be receptive to a future case presenting the question cleanly.

2. Doctrinal consequences if the dissent’s view were adopted

If courts embraced Justice Gorsuch’s approach, Title VII “undue hardship” would become more fact- and context-sensitive under Groff v. DeJoy, rather than automatically satisfied by pointing to a state prohibition. Employers would likely need to show more than “state law says no”—for example:

• whether federal law preempts the state rule in the relevant application;
• whether accommodations (testing, masking, reassignment) would meaningfully undermine the employer’s operations in a “substantial” way;
• whether compliance pathways exist that avoid discrimination while meeting legitimate safety aims.

3. Broader regulatory stakes beyond vaccines

The dissent’s reasoning extends to any setting where state licensing or regulatory regimes conflict with federal accommodation obligations: healthcare credentialing, safety rules, educational regulations, and employment conditions imposed by state agencies. The central warning is that automatic deference to state prohibitions can become a template for undercutting federal civil-rights protections.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Certiorari denied: The Supreme Court declined to review the case; this is not an endorsement of the lower court’s reasoning.
• Dissent from denial of certiorari: A Justice explains why the Court should have taken the case; it is persuasive commentary, not binding law.
• Title VII “reasonable accommodation”: Employers must adjust workplace requirements to allow employees to practice their religion, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship.
• “Undue hardship” (after Groff v. DeJoy): The burden must be “substantial” in the overall context of the employer’s business, not merely a minor cost or inconvenience.
• Prima facie case: The initial showing by a plaintiff that, if unrebutted, supports a finding of discrimination (here, the Second Circuit assumed plaintiffs plausibly made that showing).
• Preemption: When federal law overrides conflicting state law. The dissent argues Title VII is designed to preempt state rules that would require unlawful employment practices.

V. Conclusion

Doe v. Hochul produced no merits holding because certiorari was denied, but Justice Gorsuch’s dissent identifies a consequential fault line in federal accommodation law: whether state-law bans can automatically convert a requested religious accommodation into an “undue hardship.” Anchoring his argument in Title VII’s preemption provisions, Groff v. DeJoy’s substantial-burden standard, and analogies to ADA/FHA/Rehabilitation Act doctrine, he warns that categorical state-law deference risks allowing states to functionally “nullify” federal civil-rights guarantees.

The dissent’s practical message is as important as its doctrinal one: the question is recurring across circuits and statutory schemes, and until resolved, employees’ federal rights may hinge on whether a state has chosen to prohibit accommodations—precisely the outcome the dissent argues federal supremacy forbids.