UPDATES & ANALYSIS

Firing for posting rainbow flag criticism did not violate Civil Rights Act, Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals holds

by Rox Laird | August 15, 2024

When Daniel Snyder posted a comment on his employer’s intranet site expressing his opposition to the company’s use of a rainbow flag indicating support for LGBTQ+ equality, he believed he was sending the post to be seen only by the sender of an employee survey.

Instead, his post could be seen by all employees throughout the company on its intranet message board, and it resulted in his firing because the company said Snyder’s post violated its anti-harassment policy.

Snyder sued his employer, aluminum processor Arconic Corp., for religious discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Snyder argued he had a right to express his sincerely held religious belief that using the rainbow flag to support gay rights is a sacrilege.

“It’s a abomination to God,” Snyder said in his post. “Rainbow is not meant to be displayed as a sign for sexual gender.” Snyder said in his brief filed with the Eighth Circuit that “the rainbow is a Judeo-Christian symbol of the scriptural covenant between God and His people, dating back to the time of Noah and the Old Testament Book of Genesis [and] that the Bible teaches marriage is between one man and one woman.”

Arconic argued in response that Snyder’s post violated the company’s diversity policy that prohibits employees from conduct that “denigrates or shows hostility or aversion” toward someone because of a protected characteristic, including conduct that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. Arconic’s anti-harassment policy defines harassment to include circulating on social media connected to the workplace written material that “denigrates or shows hostility or aversion toward a person or group because of any characteristic protected by law.”

U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher granted Arconic’s motion for summary judgment, which was affirmed Aug. 14 by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that has federal appellate jurisdiction in Iowa and six other Midwest states.

“Because there is nothing in the record to show a conflict between Snyder’s religious belief, practice, or observance and Arconic’s facially-neutral employment requirements, his discrimination claim fails,” the Circuit Court of Appeals held in an unsigned per curiam opinion joined by appeals court Judges Raymond Gruender and Jane Kelly and Senior Judge Michael Melloy.

Under Title VII, it is unlawful for an employer to discharge or discriminate against an employee because of their religion, and an employee establishes a prima facie case of religious discrimination by showing, among other things, that the employee has a “bona fide religious belief that conflicts with an employment requirement.”

While agreeing that Snyder’s religious beliefs about the rainbow are bona fide and sincerely held, and that Arconic fired Snyder at least in part for making the post on the company intranet, that is not a prima facie Title VII violation, the appeals court said. While Snyder “focused solely on the content of the statement to the exclusion of the action he took in posting that statement on the company’s intranet,” the circuit court said, “Snyder posted a comment that was broadcast, if only temporarily, to all Arconic employees. And Arconic believed that conduct violated its facially-neutral company policies.”

The question of whether Snyder’s mistake in posting a comment that circulated company-wide should be the basis for termination is beyond its scope of review, the appellate court said, because it said, quoting a 2021 Eighth Circuit opinion,  “Federal courts do not sit as a super-personnel department that reexamines an entity’s business decisions.”

On Snyder’s appeal of the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Arconic on his retaliation claim, the Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with Snyder’s argument that Arconic’s use of the rainbow violated Title VII by creating an “abusive working environment” and that he was opposing it with his post. “Because it was not objectively reasonable to believe Arconic’s use of the rainbow violated Title VII,” the appeals court said, “Snyder’s post was not protected activity for the purposes of his retaliation claim.”

Tags: Eighth Circuit