Federal employees can talk about religion at work, display religious items in their workspaces and persuade co-workers to adopt their faith, according to new guidance released by the Office of Personnel Management.
In a memo titled “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workforce,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said public employees have the right to express their religion in the workplace under civil rights laws and the First Amendment. That includes the right to discuss religion, engage in “communal religious expressions” and display items such as Bibles, crucifixes and Jewish mezuzahs on their desks.
“Allowing religious discrimination in the Federal workplace violates the law,” Mr. Kupor wrote in the memo. “It also threatens to adversely impact recruitment and retention of highly qualified employees of faith.”
The five-page memo details examples of religious expression that shouldn’t result in punishment for federal employees. Included are inviting co-workers who belong to other religions to their church, placing invitations to services on communal bulletin boards and displaying religious posters. Workers can “persuade others to the correctness of their own religious views provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature.”
Veterans Affairs doctors can pray over their patients, and rangers for the National Park Service can join their tour groups in prayer.
“During a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the nonadherent should rethink his religious beliefs,” Mr. Kupor wrote. “However, if the nonadherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request.”
In the memo, he outlined activities that shouldn’t warrant disciplinary action, noting that federal employees “may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature.”
Some groups pushed back against the memo. The Freedom From Religion Foundation called the note “outrageous and unconstitutional,” arguing that it “encourages outright proselytizing.”
“These shocking changes essentially permit workplace evangelizing, but worse still, allow supervisors to evangelize underlings and federal workers to proselytize the public they serve,” the group’s co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, said in a statement.
Mr. Kupor disagreed, saying the guidance means that federal employees won’t have to “choose between their faith and their career.”
The Trump administration’s policy doesn’t differ much from that of previous presidents. In 1997, the Clinton White House said federal workers could “discuss their religious views with one another” and “even attempt to persuade fellow employees of the correctness of their religious views” — but had to “refrain from such expression when a fellow employee asks that it stops.”
The Clinton-era guidance let federal workers display religious items in personal work areas, including art or posters at their desks.
In addition, the Labor Department’s religious discrimination guidelines permit staffers to discuss religion in the workplace, but should “cease doing so with respect to any individual who indicates the communications are unwelcome.”
The memo builds on the Trump administration’s broader push to support people of faith in the federal workforce. In February, it issued an executive order aimed at “eradicating anti-Christian bias” and launched the WHite House Faith Office to bolster religious organizations and “better serve families and communities.”
Earlier this month, the OPM issued guidance saying that federal agencies should let employees telework in order to accommodate their faith, including those fasting or observing a religious holiday. Federal workers are also permitted to adjust their schedules around time-specific religious practices such as prayer times.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.