A U.S. Office of Personnel Management memo says workers, including supervisors, can engage in “private religious expression” at work. Photo by 089photoshootings/Pixabay
Federal workers are permitted to proselytize to fellow employees in the workplace and agencies must protect their religious rights under guidance issued by the Trump administration.
A U.S. Office of Personnel Management memo says workers, including supervisors, can engage in “private religious expression” at work. That expression could be a polite discussion with a co-worker while on a break about “why his faith is correct and why the non-adherent should rethink his religious beliefs,” according to the memo, which was issued by OPM Director Scott Kupor.
“However, if the non-adherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request,” the July 28 memo says.
In addition, workers cannot be disciplined for being unwilling to talk about religion, the memo says.
Employees are allowed to display and use religious items in their workspaces or on their person including Bibles, artwork, crosses, crucifixes and mezuzahs, according to the memo. They also can gather for prayer or scripture study at the office while not on duty.
Agencies should allow personal religious expression by federal employees to the greatest extent possible unless the expression would impose an undue hardship on business operations, according to the memo.
“Federal employees should never have to choose between their faith and their career,” Kupor said in a news release.
“This guidance ensures the federal workplace is not just compliant with the law but welcoming to Americans of all faiths. Under President Trump’s leadership, we are restoring constitutional freedoms and making government a place where people of faith are respected, not sidelined.”
In another memo, issued July 16, the Trump administration encouraged federal agencies to adopt a generous approach to approving religious accommodations for employees. For workers whose beliefs require them to abstain from work during specific times or participate in religious observances or practices, the memo suggested adopting telework and flexible work schedules, among other options.
The new memo gives examples of permissible religious expression including:
• An agency may restrict all posters but cannot single out religious posters, such as a Bible verse or a Star of David, for harsher treatment.
• Employees may wear a cross and clothing displaying a religious message.
• A supervisor may post a handwritten note on a bulletin board meant for personal announcements 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 and a doctor at a Veterans Affairs hospital may pray over his patient for her recovery.
• A security guard stationed at the front desk of a federal office building may display a Bible or use rosary beads and a receptionist in a doctor’s office at a VA Medical Center may pray with a co-worker in the patients’ waiting area.
The Society for Human Resource Management says 2023 data showed 92% of U.S. workers have a religious identity of some kind, including atheist and agnostic, but 48% have not verbally disclosed this identity at work.
The report says 7% of workers felt unfairly treated in the workplace due to their religious beliefs. When asked how this unfair treatment made them feel, 85% said they felt excluded, 81% felt disengaged, 67% felt alone and 60% felt there was no one at work they could turn to for help.
Jacqueline Simon, public policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, which represents 820,000 federal and D.C. government workers, said private expressions of religious conviction are different from proselytizing. Enabling supervisors to proselytize puts employees in a very awkward position if they don’t comply with the boss’ encouragement to practice their religion.
.”They might feel as though they might be in danger of some kind of retaliation,” Simon said.
Workers also are in a vulnerable position because President Donald Trump has issued executive orders removing collective bargaining rights for thousands of employees at some federal agencies and their union contracts have been canceled, Simon said.
The union contracts provided the best way to challenge unjustified adverse actions, she said.
“Now, you’ve got this situation where a supervisor is free to impose his religious beliefs on people who work for him — and that’s dangerous,” Simon said.
AFGE and other unions have filed lawsuits challenging the executive orders.
The Secular Coalition for America and 18 other organizations have sent a letter to Kupor demanding the guidance be rescinded before individuals’ rights are violated. The groups work to protect the rights of atheist, agnostic, humanist, spiritual and other religiously unaffiliated workers, who are frequent targets of workplace proselytization, the coalition says.
The letter says unwanted conversations attempting to persuade individuals that their sincerely held beliefs are incorrect are often harassment. Particularly concerning to the coalition is the decision to allow supervisors to follow the same guidelines as their subordinates. To prevent coercion, supervisors should be held to a different standard than peer-to-peer interactions.
The examples in the memo of a National Park Service ranger and a VA doctor praying are appalling, the letter says.
“People using taxpayer funded services — including something as critical as medical care — should not have an individual’s religion inflicted upon them, and it is deeply troubling that the administration would seek to introduce religion into inherently secular services,” the letter says.
Steven Emmert, Secular Coalition’s executive director, said the guidance is clearly geared toward those who adhere to Christian nationalism.
“The conflicts are just so apparent,” Emmert said. “And in the spirit of appeasing the Christian nationalist supporters of this administration, they are making life extremely difficult for those who don’t adhere to their religious beliefs.”
Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, one of the groups in the coalition, said that although employees are reminded that they should stop proselytizing when asked, there is nothing requiring them to do so. He also said the new rules protect exactly the sort of people who are most likely to abuse them.
“Unlike reactionary Evangelical Christians or Christian Nationalist extremists, our members who are federal employees are there to do the people’s work, not to debate their co-workers about the rightness or wrongness of their religious views,” Fish said in an email.
Other organizations in the coalition include the American Ethical Union, Ex-Muslims of North America, Freethought Society, Recovering from Religion, Secular Student Alliance and The Clergy Project.
In 1997, President Bill Clinton issued similar guidelines that say agencies cannot restrict personal religious expression by employees in the workplace.
“As a general matter, proselytizing is as entitled to constitutional protection as any other form of speech — as long as a reasonable observer would not interpret the expression as government endorsement of religion,” the guidelines say.
They add: “Employees may urge a colleague to participate or not to participate in religious activities to the same extent that, consistent with concerns of workplace efficiency, they may urge their colleagues to engage in or refrain from other personal endeavors. But employees must refrain from such expression when a fellow employee asks that it stop or otherwise demonstrates that it is unwelcome.”
Under the 1997 guidelines, agencies cannot discriminate against employees on the basis of religion, require religious participation or non-participation as a condition of employment or permit religious harassment.
