Religious Accommodation

"Religious accommodation" is the right to have one's religious practices accommodated by employers and providers of public services and facilities (such as universities). This includes modification to, or time away from, work or study to practice the tenets of one's faith. To request religious accommodation, you should submit a request to your professor or employer as early as possible (See below for more on steps on this). The obligation to accommodate is mandatory, not discretionary. The University is under a duty to accommodate up to the point of undue hardship.

Like all other post-secondary institutions, SFU falls under the jurisdiction of the BC Human Rights Code. Under the B.C. Human Rights Code, discrimination by employers and providers of public services and facilities (such as universities) on the basis of certain protected grounds, including religion, is prohibited. Subject to limited exceptions, you have a right to have your religious practices accommodated.

 Accommodation could look different for each request.

If a student is asking to be absent on a recognized holy day, they are generally entitled to be absent, without penalty, and to perform the work at another time. Accommodation for this can involve (but are not limited to) the following:

• writing a make-up exam on another day;
• assigning the value of the exam to a later exam;
• requiring the student to submit another type of assignment.

If a student is asking for accommodation within classes or during exams, some examples of what religious accommodation could look like include:

• being allowed extra time; 
• to exit briefly to engage in a prayer;
• to have food permitted if an exam is after sunset during Ramadan.

Conversely, there is no legal duty to accommodate religious social or optional faith based event. Some examples of this could include:

• an optional faith study at your place of worship;
• a friend's Christmas party;
• a food event hosted by your faith community that is not for religious observance.

In relation to religious accommodation, the law requires us to accommodate employees and students up to the point of undue hardship. What constitutes undue hardship is determined on a case-by-case basis, but generally speaking the University would need to show that accommodating a religious practice for a student or an employee would create unduly onerous conditions. Factors that are considered are the cost (relative to the overall budget of the University), disruption of the workforce, and the effect on other students and employees. 

Often, leaving too little time to make an accommodation becomes a significant factor in undue hardship. However, undue hardship is a high threshold to meet. There are limited circumstances in which the University would be justified in saying that undue hardship has been reached.

Yes, there is a difference. Chinese New Year would be an example of a culturally-significant day that does not have the religious connotations it used to have, but is nevertheless an important 15-day celebration among people here and abroad. If a student or an employee were to request time away from work or study to celebrate Chinese New Year, the University may decide to grant time off, but there would be no legal requirement to do so.