U.S. Supreme Court
1963

The Supreme Court’s first major twentieth-century religious liberty case involved Adele Sherbert, a textile worker in Beaumont Mills, South Carolina. The factory that employed her instituted a six-day workweek—Monday through Satur- day. But Sherbert was a Seventh-day Adventist, which teaches that the Sab- bath is Saturday (Exod. 31:15: “Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death”). Sherbert quit and applied for unemployment benefits but was rejected on the grounds that she had left her original job voluntarily and turned down opportunities to work at other factories (which also required work on Saturdays). The State of South Carolina had a reasonable position. The law didn’t target Seventh-day Adventists; the state was blind—or noncognizant, as Madison might have said—as to whether it hurt or helped a particular religion. The law was the law.

Appellant, a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, was discharged by her South Carolina employer because she would not work on Saturday, the Sabbath Day of her faith. She was unable to obtain other employment because she would not work on Saturday, and she filed a claim for unemployment compensation benefits under the South Carolina Unemployment Compensation Act, which provides that a claimant is ineligible for benefits if he has failed, without good cause, to accept available suitable work when offered him. The State Commission denied appellant’s application on the ground that she would not accept suitable work when offered, and its action was sustained by the State Supreme Court.

Appellant, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was discharged by her South Carolina employer because she would not work on Saturday, the Sabbath Day of her faith.  When she was unable to obtain other employment because, from conscientious scruples, she would not take Saturday work,  she filed a claim for unemployment compensation benefits under the South Carolina Unemployment Compensation Act.   That law provides that, to be eligible for benefits, a claimant must be “able to work and . . . available for work”; and, further, that a claimant is ineligible for benefits “[i]f . . . The has failed, without good cause . . . to accept available suitable work when offered him by the employment office or the employer. . . .”

The appellee Employment Security Commission, in administrative proceedings under the statute, found that appellant’s restriction upon her availability for Saturday work brought her within the provision disqualifying for benefits insured workers who fail, without good cause, to accept “suitable work when offered . . . by the employment office or the employer. . . .” The Commission’s finding was sustained by the Court of Common Pleas for Spartanburg County. That court’s judgment was, in turn, affirmed by the South Carolina Supreme Court, which rejected appellant’s contention that, as applied to her, the disqualifying provisions of the South Carolina statute abridged her right to the free exercise of her religion secured under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment through the Fourteenth Amendment. The State Supreme Court held specifically that appellant’s ineligibility infringed no constitutional liberties because such a construction of the statute “places no restriction upon the appellant’s freedom of religion, nor does it in any way prevent her in the exercise of her right and freedom to observe her religious beliefs in accordance with the dictates of her conscience.”

 We noted probable jurisdiction of appellant’s appeal. 371 U.S. 938. We reverse the judgment of the South Carolina Supreme Court and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

I

The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any governmental regulation of religious beliefs as such, Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 310 U. S. 303. Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488; nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold religious views abhorrent to the authorities, Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67; nor employ the taxing power to inhibit the dissemination of particular religious views, Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105; Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573; cf. Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233. On the other hand, the Court has rejected challenges under the Free Exercise Clause to governmental regulation of certain overt acts prompted by religious beliefs or principles, for “even when the action is in accord with one’s religious convictions, [it] is not totally free from legislative restrictions.” Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 366 U. S. 603. The conduct or actions so regulated have invariably posed some substantial threat to public safety, peace or order. See, e.g., Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145; Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158; Cleveland v. United States, 329 U. S. 14.

Plainly enough, appellant’s conscientious objection to Saturday work constitutes no conduct prompted by religious principles of a kind within the reach of state legislation. If, therefore, the decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court is to withstand appellant’s constitutional challenge, it must be either because her disqualification as a beneficiary represents no infringement by the State of her constitutional rights of free exercise, or because any incidental burden on the free exercise of appellant’s religion may be justified by a “compelling state interest in the regulation of a subject within the State’s constitutional power to regulate. . . .” NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 371 U. S. 438.

II

We turn first to the question whether the disqualification for benefits imposes any burden on the free exercise of appellant’s religion. We think it is clear that it does. In a sense, the consequences of such a disqualification to religious principles and practices may be only an indirect result of welfare legislation within the State’s general competence to enact; it is true that no criminal sanctions directly compel appellant to work a six-day week. But this is only the beginning, not the end, of our inquiry. For “[i]f the purpose or effect of a law is to impede the observance of one or all religions or is to discriminate invidiously between religions, that law is constitutionally invalid even though the burden may be characterized as being only indirect.”

Braunfeld v. Brown, supra, at 366 U. S. 607. Here, not only is it apparent that appellant’s declared ineligibility for benefits derives solely from the practice of her religion, but the pressure upon her to forego that practice is unmistakable. The ruling forces her to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting benefits, on the one hand, and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to accept work, on the other hand. Governmental imposition of such a choice puts the same kind of burden upon the free exercise of religion as would a fine imposed against appellant for her Saturday worship.

Nor may the South Carolina court’s construction of the statute be saved from constitutional infirmity on the ground that unemployment compensation benefits are not appellant’s “right,” but merely a “privilege.” It is too late in the day to doubt that the liberties of religion and expression may be infringed by the denial of or placing of conditions upon a benefit or privilege. [Footnote 6]American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 339 U. S. 390; Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 344 U. S. 191-192; Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc., 327 U. S. 146, 327 U. S. 155-156. For example, in Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603, 363 U. S. 611, the Court recognized with respect to Federal Social Security benefits that

“[t]he interest of a covered employee under the Act is of sufficient substance to fall within the protection from arbitrary governmental action afforded by the Due Process Clause.”

In Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, we emphasized that conditions upon public benefits cannot be sustained if they so operate, whatever their purpose, a to inhibit or deter the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. We there struck down a condition which limited the availability of a tax exemption to those members of the exempted class who affirmed their loyalty to the state government granting the exemption. While the State was surely under no obligation to afford such an exemption, we held that the imposition of such a condition upon even a gratuitous benefit inevitably deterred or discouraged the exercise of First Amendment rights of expression, and thereby threatened to “produce a result which the State could not command directly.” 357 U.S. at 357 U. S. 526. “To deny an exemption to claimants who engage in certain forms of speech is, in effect, to penalize them for such speech.” Id. at 357 U. S. 518. Likewise, to condition the availability of benefits upon this appellant’s willingness to violate a cardinal principle of her religious faith effectively penalizes the free exercise of her constitutional liberties.

Significantly, South Carolina expressly saves the Sunday worshipper from having to make the kind of choice which we here hold infringes the Sabbatarian’s religious liberty. When, in times of “national emergency,” the textile plants are authorized by the State Commissioner of Labor to operate on Sunday,

“no employee shall be required to work on Sunday . . . who is conscientiously opposed to Sunday work, and if any employee should refuse to work on Sunday on account of conscientious . . . objections, he or she shall not jeopardize his or her seniority by such refusal or be discriminated against in any other manner.”

S.C.Code, § 64-4. No question of the disqualification of a Sunday worshipper for benefits is likely to arise, since we cannot suppose that an employer will discharge him in violation of this statute. The unconstitutionality of the disqualification of the Sabbatarian is thus compounded by the religious discrimination which South Carolina’s general statutory scheme necessarily effects.

III

We must next consider whether some compelling state interest enforced in the eligibility provisions of the South Carolina statute justifies the substantial infringement of appellant’s First Amendment right. It is basic that no showing merely of a rational relationship to some colorable state interest would suffice; in this highly sensitive constitutional area, “[o]nly the gravest abuses, endangering paramount interests, give occasion for permissible limitation,” Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 323 U. S. 530.

No such abuse or danger has been advanced in the present case. The appellees suggest no more than a possibility that the filing of fraudulent claims by unscrupulous claimants feigning religious objections to Saturday work might not only dilute the unemployment compensation fund, but also hinder the scheduling by employers of necessary Saturday work. But that possibility is not apposite here, because no such objection appears to have been made before the South Carolina Supreme Court, and we are unwilling to assess the importance of an asserted state interest without the views of the state court. Nor, if the contention had been made below, would the record appear to sustain it; there is no proof whatever to warrant such fears of malingering or deceit as those which the respondents now advance. Even if consideration of such evidence is not foreclosed by the prohibition against judicial inquiry into the truth or falsity of religious beliefs, United States v. Ballard,322 U. S. 78 — a question as to which we intimate no view, since it is not before us — it is highly doubtful whether such evidence would be sufficient to warrant a substantial infringement of religious liberties. For even if the possibility of spurious claims did threaten to dilute the fund and disrupt the scheduling of work, it would plainly be incumbent upon the appellees to demonstrate that no alternative forms of regulation would combat such abuses without infringing First Amendment rights. [Footnote 7] Cf. 364 U. S. Tucker, 364 U.S.

479, 364 U. S. 487-490; Talley v. California, 362 U. S. 60, 362 U. S. 64; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147,308 U. S. 161; Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, 319 U. S. 144-149.

In these respects, then, the state interest asserted in the present case is wholly dissimilar to the interests which were found to justify the less direct burden upon religious practices in Braunfeld v. Brown, supra. The Court recognized that the Sunday closing law which that decision sustained undoubtedly served “to make the practice of [the Orthodox Jewish merchants’] . . . religious beliefs more expensive,” 366 U.S. at 366 U. S. 605. But the statute was nevertheless saved by a countervailing factor which finds no equivalent in the instant case — a strong state interest in providing one uniform day of rest for all workers. That secular objective could be achieved, the Court found, only by declaring Sunday to be that day of rest. Requiring exemptions for Sabbatarians, while theoretically possible, appeared to present an administrative problem of such magnitude, or to afford the exempted class so great a competitive advantage, that such a requirement would have rendered the entire statutory scheme unworkable.   In the present case, no such justifications underlie the determination of the state court that appellant’s religion makes her ineligible to receive benefits. 

IV

In holding as we do, plainly we are not fostering the “establishment” of the Seventh-day Adventist religion in South Carolina, for the extension of unemployment benefits to Sabbatarians in common with Sunday worshippers reflects nothing more than the governmental obligation of neutrality in the face of religious differences, and does not represent that involvement of religious with secular institutions which it is the object of the Establishment Clause to forestall. See School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, ante, p. 374 U. S. 203. Nor does the recognition of the appellant’s right to unemployment benefits under the state statute serve to abridge any other person’s religious liberties. Nor do we, by our decision today, declare the existence of a constitutional right to unemployment benefits on the part of all persons whose religious convictions are the cause of their unemployment. This is not a case in which an employee’s religious convictions serve to make him a nonproductive member of society.See note 2 supra. Finally, nothing we say today constrains the States to adopt any particular form or scheme of unemployment compensation. Our holding today is only that South Carolina may not constitutionally apply the eligibility provisions so as to constrain a worker to abandon his religious convictions respecting the day of rest. This holding but reaffirms a principle that we announced a decade and a half ago, namely that no State may “exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation.” Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 330 U. S. 16.

In view of the result we have reached under the First and Fourteenth Amendments’ guarantee of free exercise of religion, we have no occasion to consider appellant’s claim that the denial of benefits also deprived her of the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The judgment of the South Carolina Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Full text

Source(s):

Sherbert v. Verner, 374 US 398 (1963).