Conduct a critical analysis to the RESPONSE, listed below, (IN BOLD), Responses must demonstrate clear, insightful critical thinking.

Question(s):

Read the following hypothetical problem. After analyzing the problem, describe what actions Supervisor Jan should take in addressing Jason's request.

Jason works for a large retail department store chain. Despite the store's no-solicitation policy, Jason has been approaching his co-workers in the lunch room every day with Bible verses and asking them to join him in reading the Bible. Several employees have complained to Supervisor Jan. When Supervisor Jan told Jason to cease this practice, Jason told her it was part of his religious observance.

Response:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's religion or to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's religion.

The term 'religion' includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate an employee's or prospective employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business. Unlike the other categories included in Title VII, there is not an absolute prohibition against discrimination based on religion. Rather, under Title VII, we see for the first time a category that has built into it a duty to reasonably accommodate the employee's religious conflict unless to do so would cause the employer undue hardship.

In addition, Title VII prohibits religious discrimination, it also prohibits religious harassment. EEOC guidelines on liability for workplace harassment explicitly cover religious harassment. As far as for Jason's situation, some of the guidelines/suggestions considered for this case are that employees should be permitted to engage in private religious expression in personal work areas not regularly open to the public to the same extent that they may engage in nonreligious private expression. Employees should also be permitted to engage in religious expression with fellow employees to the same extent that they may engage in comparable nonreligious private expression, subject to reasonable restrictions. Employees are permitted to engage in religious expression directed at fellow employees and may even attempt to persuade fellow employees of the correctness of their religious views. But employees must refrain from such expression when a fellow employee asks that it stop or otherwise demonstrates that it is. A case that I found similar from our book is the Peterson v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 358 F.3d 599 (9th Cir. 2004), an employee sued the employer for religious discrimination and alleged religious harassment.

Lastly, in order to best prevent liability for religious harassment, employers should be sure to protect employees from those religious employees who attempt to proselytize others who do not wish to be approached about religious matters as well as to protect employees with permissible religious practices who are given a hard time by those who believe differently. Making sure that employees are given comparable opportunities to use workplace time and resources for religious practices if given for secular ones is also an important consideration, as otherwise it may appear that the employer is discriminating on the basis of religion.

Reference: Bennett-Alexander, D. D. (2021). Employment Law for Business (10th ed.). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US). https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781264126101