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Rh Circuit, particularly insofar as that decision had approved an accommodation that allegedly overrode seniority rights granted by the relevant collective bargaining agreement. At the time, some thought that the Court’s now-abrogated decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602—which adopted a test under which any law whose “principal or primary effect” “was to advance religion” was unconstitutional, id., at 612–613—posed a serious problem for the 1972 amendment of Title VII. Ultimately, however, constitutional concerns played no on-stage role in the Court’s decision in Hardison. Instead, the Court’s opinion stated that “the principal issue on which TWA and the union came to this Court” was whether Title VII “require[s] an employer and a union who have agreed on a seniority system to deprive senior employees of their seniority rights in order to accommodate a junior employee’s religious practices.” Hardison, 432 U. S., at 83, and n. 14. The Court held that Title VII imposed no such requirement. Id., at 83, and n. 14. This conclusion, the Court found, was “supported by the fact that seniority systems are afforded special treatment under Title VII itself.” Id., at 81. Applying this interpretation of Title VII and disagreeing with the Eighth Circuit’s evaluation of the factual record, the Court identified no way in which TWA, without violating seniority rights, could have feasibly accommodated Hardison’s request for an exemption from work on his Sabbath.

(3) Even though Hardison’s reference to “de minimis” was undercut by conflicting language and was fleeting in comparison to its discussion of the “principal issue” of seniority rights, lower courts have latched on to “de minimis” as the governing standard. To be sure, many courts have understood that the protection for religious adherents is greater than “more than … de minimis” might suggest when read in isolation. But diverse religious groups tell the Court that the “de minimis” standard has been used to deny even minor accommodations. The EEOC has also accepted Hardison as prescribing a “more than a de minimis cost” test, 29 CFR §1605.2(e)(1), though it has tried