JWI Fellow Alumna Stephanie N. Taub serves as Senior Counsel with First Liberty Institute, focusing on restoring religious liberty in the marketplace. She was also a fellow for the James Wilson Institute in 2017.

At First Liberty, she advocates for the rights of employees and business leaders of faith to work with integrity, consistent with their religious convictions.

Taub has authored pieces published by National Review and the Federalist Society and has appeared on Fox News. The Texas Review of Law and Politics published her article on federal employment law protections for faith-based employers. The article elaborates on the statutory right of religious institutions to cultivate communities of faith.

Before joining First Liberty, Taub worked as a law clerk to the Honorable Reed O’Connor in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. She graduated from Harvard Law School and is a Blackstone Fellow. For her undergraduate studies, Taub graduated summa cum laude, receiving a bachelor of science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.

Federal employment law (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act) protects Americans from religious discrimination in the workplace. The law requires employers to accommodate the religious beliefs of their employees unless doing so would cause an “undue hardship” on the business. This term the Supreme Court took up a case (Groff v. DeJoy) focusing on the meaning of this “undue hardship” standard. The case involves a postal carrier who lost his job after the U.S. Postal Service refused to allow him to observe his Sunday Sabbath. In June 2023, the Supreme Court unanimously held that employers must provide reasonable religious accommodations unless they can prove that doing so would cause substantial increased costs on the conduct of the employer’s business. Stephanie N. Taub, Senior Counsel at First Liberty Institute, will give an update on the case and how it impacts employee rights to religious accommodation in the workplace.