PHILOSOPHY
Respond to the following paragraph. You can either agree or disagree with it. response, should be 150 words.
In the Sherbet V Verner case a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was fired by her employer because she refused to work on Saturdays which was the Sabbath Day of her religion. She then became unable to get another job because she continued to search for jobs that would grant her Saturdays off. She eventually had no choice but to file a claim for unemployment. But at this time, according to their laws, to be eligible for benefits, the person must be able to work and available for work. The person is ineligible for benefits if they fail, without good cause “. . . to accept available suitable work when offered him by the employment office or the employer . . . .” from what I can understand, the supreme court ruled onto her favor due to denying her these benefits would be a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment through the Fourteenth Amendment.
This case relates a lot to the Trans World Airlines Inc v. Hardison. An employee who was part of the maintenance division of the Airlines tried to sue the Airlines for his right to take Saturdays off due to his religion. But unlike the Sherbet v Verner, the court ruled against him. Yes his Free Exercise Clause was being violated, but the courts found that the Airlines argument of this employee being the only person available to do his job Saturdays on a job that needed constant surveillance and monitoring was more outweighed the need to take Saturdays off due to his religion. One would think that their could have been an alternative to this situation but according to the Airlines there was “no alternative method, such as paying premium wages to a substitute to work extra day.”
This seems to be unfair because both cases included persons who requested to take Saturdays off due to their religion, but it seems that for the Trans World Airlines Inc v. Hardison, the supreme court maybe felt that this person taking Saturdays off may have increased a risk for danger because his Free Exercise Clause was violated and didn’t pose to be a good enough reason to give him that day off. For both of these cases, a questions comes to me, ethically, who are the judicial system to deny one persons request, but grant another persons due to their positions at the workplace.
