Title VII Religious Accommodation After COVID Orders: Testing Objections Must Be Religious, and Employers Need Not Violate Binding Executive Orders

Introduction

Latosha Bowlin, Nicole Potthast, and Amanda K. Humphreys (employees of three Illinois schools) challenged their employers’ actions taken during the COVID-19 pandemic after Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker issued a “vaccinate or test” Executive Order for school personnel. The Order allowed a religious exemption from vaccination, but still required weekly testing for those claiming the exemption.

Plaintiffs refused both vaccination (citing religious beliefs) and weekly testing (asserting it violated their “moral consciences”). They were suspended without pay or terminated pursuant to school policies implementing the Order and joint guidance from the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Department of Public Health. They sued under Title VII and other laws; on appeal, they pursued only the Title VII claim and newly argued an Illinois Public Health Code theory.

The core issues before the Seventh Circuit were:

  • Whether Plaintiffs plausibly alleged that weekly testing conflicted with a religious belief or practice protected by Title VII.
  • Whether Title VII could require an accommodation that would force employers to violate a binding Executive Order.
  • Whether Plaintiffs could raise a new Illinois Public Health Code argument for the first time on appeal.

Summary of the Opinion

The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of the Title VII claim. It held:

  1. Plaintiffs did not plausibly allege that the testing requirement (the offered accommodation) conflicted with any religious observance, practice, or belief; their allegations framed the objection as one of “moral conscience” and medical necessity rather than religion.
  2. Even if Plaintiffs had pled a religious conflict, the accommodation they wanted—working while refusing both vaccination and weekly testing—would have required the schools to contravene the Governor’s Executive Order, which Title VII does not require. An accommodation that requires violating the law is an undue hardship as a matter of law.
  3. Plaintiffs’ Illinois Public Health Code argument was waived because it was not raised in the complaint or before the district court.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

1) Pleading standard and Rule 12(b)(6) framework

  • Cheli v. Taylorville Cmty. Sch. Dist.: Provided the de novo standard of review for dismissals under Rule 12(b)(6).
  • Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal: Supplied the “plausibility” standard. The court emphasized that plaintiffs must plead enough factual content to permit a reasonable inference of liability; conclusory assertions and speculative allegations do not suffice.
  • Gociman v. Loyola Univ. of Chi.: Reinforced that well-pled allegations are accepted as true and reasonable inferences are drawn for the plaintiff at the motion-to-dismiss stage.

These authorities framed the decisive question as not whether Plaintiffs might later prove a religious conflict, but whether their complaint plausibly alleged one—specifically as to testing, since that was the accommodation offered.

2) Title VII religious accommodation elements and what “religion” means

  • Adeyeye v. Heartland Sweeteners, LLC: The Seventh Circuit relied on Adeyeye for the prima facie elements: (1) a religious observance/practice conflicting with an employment requirement, (2) notice to the employer, (3) adverse action based on that observance/practice. Adeyeye also adopted the “religion” definition used in Seeger for Title VII purposes and emphasized that genuinely held beliefs involving “matters of the afterlife, spirituality, or the soul” qualify.
  • United States v. Seeger: Provided the benchmark for a “religious belief”: sincere and meaningful, occupying a place parallel to orthodox belief in God. The court used this to distinguish religious commitments from generalized moral or medical objections.
  • Redmond v. GAF Corp.: Supported the proposition that the inquiry turns on sincerity and the believer’s own “scheme of things,” but it still must be religious in nature rather than merely personal or philosophical.
  • Kluge v. Brownsburg Cmty. Sch. Corp.: Used for the burden-shifting framework: once a prima facie case is made, the employer must reasonably accommodate or show undue hardship.

3) What counts as a “reasonable accommodation” (and when the inquiry ends)

  • Ansonia Bd. of Educ. v. Philbrook: Anchored the principle that Title VII requires reasonable accommodation, not accommodation “at all costs,” and the employer need not provide the employee’s preferred option.
  • Rodriguez v. City of Chicago (quoted in Jackson v. Methodist Health Servs. Corp.): Provided the formulation that a reasonable accommodation is one that “eliminates the conflict” between job requirements and religious practice.
  • Porter v. City of Chicago: Reinforced that the accommodation need not be the employee’s preferred or most beneficial accommodation.
  • E.E.O.C. v. Ilona of Hungary, Inc. (quoting Philbrook): Supplied the “end of inquiry” idea: once an employer offers an alternative that reasonably accommodates religious needs, the statutory inquiry ends.

Importantly, this case turned the usual accommodation discussion on a threshold point: Plaintiffs did not plausibly allege that the offered alternative (testing) implicated religion at all, so there was no Title VII conflict for the accommodation analysis to “eliminate.”

4) Vaccine/testing objections at the pleading stage

  • Passarella v. Aspirus, Inc.: The court treated Passarella as a key pleading-stage guidepost for vaccine-mandate accommodation claims—plaintiffs must allege facts allowing an inference that the request is based on “religious observance and practice” or “belief.” The opinion drew a contrast: Passarella connected the objection to vaccination to Christian beliefs about the sanctity of the body, whereas these Plaintiffs tied their testing objection to “moral consciences” and medical-necessity judgments. The court also quoted Passarella’s warning that accommodation requests rooted entirely in safety concerns “with no plain and express connection to religion” fall outside Title VII even at the pleading stage.
  • Jackson v. Methodist Health Servs. Corp.: Provided a closely analogous scenario: a plaintiff opposed periodic COVID-19 testing but cited no religious tenet or practice that testing interfered with. The court relied on Jackson to hold that opposition to testing—without identifying a religious doctrine or practice in conflict—is insufficient.

5) “Undue hardship” after Groff and illegality as undue hardship

  • Groff v. DeJoy: Supplied the modern “undue hardship” standard: a burden is undue when it is “substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business.” While Groff raised the bar from older formulations, this case illustrates that some hardships remain categorically substantial—such as being forced to violate binding law.
  • McWright v. Alexander: The court acknowledged the general rule that undue-hardship analysis is often inappropriate at the pleadings stage.
  • Sutton v. Providence St. Joseph Med. Ctr.: Used as an example that dismissal at the pleading stage is proper when the requested accommodation would require the employer to violate the law.
  • Yeager v. FirstEnergy Generation Corp., Russo v. Patchogue-Medford Sch. Dist., and Seaworth v. Pearson: Cited to show broad circuit agreement: Title VII does not require accommodations that would violate federal or state law; illegality is an undue hardship.

The court thus offered a second, independent basis for affirmance: even if the Plaintiffs had adequately pled a religious conflict with testing, their requested accommodation (no vaccine and no testing) was incompatible with the Executive Order’s legal requirements.

6) Executive Orders as “law” and waiver on appeal

  • Bradley Hotel Corp. v. Aspen Specialty Ins. Co.: Supported the proposition that COVID-era Executive Orders can “carry the force of law” and fall within what the Seventh Circuit understands to be “laws,” similar to binding rules issued under delegated authority. This mattered because the Plaintiffs’ preferred accommodation would have required the schools to act unlawfully.
  • Wheeler v. Hronopoulos: Controlled the waiver ruling: arguments not presented to the district court are waived on appeal. This disposed of Plaintiffs’ Illinois Public Health Code theory.

Legal Reasoning

  1. The complaint must allege a religious conflict with the challenged requirement. The court treated the relevant “employment requirement” as weekly testing—because vaccination had already been accommodated by offering the testing alternative. Under Adeyeye v. Heartland Sweeteners, LLC and Passarella v. Aspirus, Inc., Plaintiffs had to plead facts plausibly showing that testing conflicted with a religious observance, practice, or belief. Instead, the complaint alleged only that Plaintiffs’ “moral consciences” prevented them from submitting to “health care procedures” they considered medically unnecessary, and objected to what they viewed as arbitrary discrimination among employees based on health choices. The court held these allegations did not identify any religious tenet, practice, or spiritual obligation that testing would violate (as required by Jackson v. Methodist Health Servs. Corp.).
  2. Title VII does not let an employee defeat any accommodation by calling differential treatment religiously offensive. Plaintiffs also suggested that being subjected to testing (as compared to vaccinated employees) was itself objectionable on conscience grounds. The court rejected this as inconsistent with the function of accommodation, quoting Wright v. Runyon (and Philbrook): accommodation exists to eliminate the conflict between job requirements and religious practice—not to guarantee identical treatment after an exemption is granted.
  3. Even if the pleading were sufficient, the requested accommodation was legally impossible without undue hardship. Plaintiffs’ preferred alternative (self-monitoring, masking, voluntary reporting, or unspecified “reasonable testing”) did not satisfy the Executive Order, which required either vaccination or weekly testing. Relying on Bradley Hotel Corp. v. Aspen Specialty Ins. Co., the court treated the Executive Order as binding law. Under Groff v. DeJoy and the line of cases including Sutton v. Providence St. Joseph Med. Ctr., Yeager v. FirstEnergy Generation Corp., Russo v. Patchogue-Medford Sch. Dist., and Seaworth v. Pearson, an accommodation that forces an employer to violate the law constitutes undue hardship—sometimes resolvable as a matter of law on the pleadings despite the general caution in McWright v. Alexander.
  4. New statutory theories cannot be raised for the first time on appeal. Plaintiffs’ Illinois Public Health Code argument failed under Wheeler v. Hronopoulos because it was never pleaded or presented to the district court.

Impact

This decision crystallizes two practical rules for Title VII religious-accommodation litigation in the Seventh Circuit, particularly in public-health-policy contexts:

  • Pleading precision requirement for “testing” objections. Where an employer offers testing as an accommodation to a vaccine mandate, an employee who refuses testing must plausibly allege a religious conflict with testing itself—identifying some religious tenet, practice, or belief that testing burdens. Describing the objection in terms of “moral conscience,” medical necessity, fairness, or policy disagreement will likely be insufficient under Passarella v. Aspirus, Inc. and Jackson v. Methodist Health Servs. Corp..
  • No Title VII duty to accommodate by violating binding law. The opinion strengthens a categorical defense: if the requested accommodation would require the employer to contravene a binding statute, regulation, or Executive Order with the force of law, the employer can establish undue hardship—even at the pleading stage—because Title VII does not compel unlawful conduct.

More broadly, the court’s treatment of the Executive Order under Bradley Hotel Corp. v. Aspen Specialty Ins. Co. signals that when public-health directives are legally binding, Title VII accommodation analysis will often have a hard stop: the statute’s “reasonable accommodation” obligation does not extend to authorizing noncompliance with law.

Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Prima facie case (Title VII religion): A basic showing that (1) you have a religious practice/belief that conflicts with a job requirement, (2) you told your employer, and (3) you were punished because of that conflict.
  • Reasonable accommodation: A change that resolves the conflict between work rules and religious practice. It does not have to be the employee’s preferred solution (Ansonia Bd. of Educ. v. Philbrook; Porter v. City of Chicago).
  • Undue hardship (post-Groff): An accommodation is too burdensome when it creates a substantial burden in the overall context of the business (Groff v. DeJoy). Requiring illegal conduct is treated as inherently substantial.
  • Pleading “plausibility”: A complaint must allege enough concrete facts—not just conclusions—to make liability a reasonable inference (Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly; Ashcroft v. Iqbal).
  • Waiver on appeal: You generally cannot raise a new legal theory for the first time in the appellate court; it must be presented to the district court first (Wheeler v. Hronopoulos).
  • “Moral conscience” vs. “religious belief”: Title VII protects religious beliefs and practices; a personal ethical stance or medical judgment may be sincerely held but still not “religious” within Title VII unless tied to a religious framework as described in United States v. Seeger and applied in Adeyeye v. Heartland Sweeteners, LLC.

Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit’s decision affirms that, when an employer offers weekly testing as an accommodation to a vaccine mandate, employees who refuse testing must plead (and ultimately prove) a specifically religious conflict with testing—not merely a moral, medical, or fairness-based objection. Independently, the opinion underscores a strong limiting principle: Title VII does not require accommodations that would force employers to violate binding legal requirements such as a Governor’s Executive Order with the force of law. Finally, the case reiterates strict appellate waiver rules, rejecting new statutory arguments not raised below.