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The Trump administration just announced workplace rules that stand to make it easier for federal employees to pressure their colleagues to convert to their religion of choice.
Donald Trump has openly stated his desire to disregard the constitutional separation of church and state. He has said the U.S. would be better off if conservative Christians had more power. And he has loaded his Religious Liberty Commission with Christian extremists who oppose church-state separation, as well.
That’s important context for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s recent memo, dated July 28, which lays out the administration’s stance on religious expression in the federal workplace — and includes an eyebrow-raising line about religious disputes:
During a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the non-adherent should re-think his religious beliefs. However, if the non-adherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request.
It’s easy to see people taking liberties with this guidance and potentially running roughshod over employees who may feel fearful of pushing back against the proselytizing. It’s also not hard to imagine federal workplaces poorly enforcing the rule requiring employees to cease proselytizing when asked — particularly under an administration that has shown a willingness to allow workplace discrimination and a Supreme Court that has shown favor to Christians expressing their religion in the workplace while seemingly disregarding people who might be discomforted by it.
As The New York Times noted, the language of the OPM memo isn’t entirely new and mirrors language followed by Bill Clinton’s administration three decades ago:
The Clinton White House issued similar guidelines in 1997, though at greater length and with more detailed examples and caveats. The Trump administration did not say whether its guidelines superseded those issued in 1997. Neither set of directives affects the First Amendment to the Constitution or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Indeed, it’s true that the current memo mirrors what’s been done in the past — which, to be clear, doesn’t inherently mean the policy is, or was, a positive one. But the disturbing difference is that Trump and his administration have been more clear than any in recent memory in expressing the belief that Christians deserve preferential treatment and incomparable power. So it’s hard to fathom this policy deviating from that viewpoint in practice.