68 Am. U. L. Rev. 569 (2018).

* Senior Articles Editor, American University Law Review, Volume 68; J.D. Candidate, May 2019, American University Washington College of Law; B.A., Psychology, Honors, 2013, University of South Florida.  I would like to thank my faculty advisor, Stephen Wermiel, for his invaluable expertise and guidance.  I would also like to extend my sincerest appreciation to the American University Law Review Editorial Board, especially Kymberly Kester, who spent countless hours discussing religious exercise with me.  Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their continued support and inspiration.

As the nation is grappling with rancorous identity wars, some are looking to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) as both a shield and sword.  What was once a permissible federal religious accommodation has become an impermissible religious endorsement.  This Comment argues that the Supreme Court’s recent expansion of RFRA, as applied to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, violates the Establishment Clause.  RFRA not only provides employers immunity from Title  VII, it allows employers to utilize the judiciary to coerce lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) employees to conform to the employers’ religious beliefs.  In providing employers religious exemptions from Title VII, the judiciary coerces religious conformance and endorses religion.  However blurred the boundaries of the Establishment Clause are, it clearly prohibits such government action.