Diverse inclusivity is essential in any business to promote fairness, involvement, and equality for all individuals from different backgrounds, enhance outcomes and innovation, and improve social cohesion and integrity with subsequent scaling of prejudice and social discrimination. Business ethics requires corporations to hold such value in their company to ensure equal opportunities and representation of different individuals in society (Chaudhry, 2021). However, diverse inclusivity and consideration of people’s beliefs may be cumbersome, impose bottlenecks on the company, and affect the product as a whole. Moreover, such consideration may instill prejudice among other workers for thinking that the other workers are favored more than others, as in the case of Sam and his keeper Sandra who files a lawsuit against him. Such a scenario can lead to negative perceptions from other workers that the organization is unfair and biased.
Without a constitution, the legal dilemma imposed in this scenario would likely be based on common law principles and the rational thinking of the judges and the juries. From the scenario, the judges would rule in favor of Sam, the employer, due to constraints the business faced at that time, including COVID-19, higher turnover rate, and unfairness to other Christian employees who deserved such treatment too. Business ethics emphasizes equality and fairness among workers, and accommodating Sandra’s religious beliefs would make other Christian employees question equality and fairness in the business as they would, too, need similar treatment. This could lead to more employers quitting the job, destabilizing the business. Moreover, businesses must copy up and adjust their operations according to rising circumstances. Businesses can reduce the privileges offered to their employees to afford the effects, which, in the scenario, includes cutting off Sandra’s religious accommodation. This decision would be fair to all parties, including other employees, since the owner is cutting off such privileges due to the prevailing circumstances and not because it is the organization’s policy.
Sandra’s lawyer can easily support his arguments based on the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, which shields employees’ rights to exercise their religion in their workplace (Blackman, 2021). The clause upholds the employees’ rights to exercise their religious practices as they should on the condition that the practice does not compel government interest or go against public morals. Sandra’s lawyer can argue that Sam’s refusal to allow Sandra to perform her religious practices and routines constitutes religious discrimination and inconsideration hence violating the Free Exercise Clause, which protects the employees’ religious rights. Moreover, Sandra’s lawyer can claim that Sam’s proposal violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects employees against racial, color, originality, and religious discrimination. The primary arguments to support this legal proposed argument include the Trans World Airlines v. Hardison case in 1977, which portrayed that employers must accommodate religious practices unless such practices conflict with government interest or moral practices.
I agree that corporations should have First Amendments rights as this would ensure equal opportunities and freedom of religious exercise in the excise, which is a form of diverse inclusion. The aim of any business is profitability, and the efficient running of its operations achieves this. Corporations should therefore impose owners’ religious beliefs if such beliefs negatively affect the business operations. The laws in the constitution do not specify the kind of religious beliefs to adhere to. Therefore, the law requires the protection of religious beliefs by allowing employees to practice them freely. Constitution plays a significant role in ensuring the rights of its citizens are upheld and establishes a framework that checks and balances policies that helps avert abuses of power and guarantees that the corporations function within law bounds. Therefore, the U.S. needs a constitution.
References
Blackman, J. (2021). The” Essential” Free Exercise Clause. Harv. JL & Pub. Pol’y, 44, 637.
Chaudhry, I. S., Paquibut, R. Y., & Tunio, M. N. (2021). Do workforce diversity, inclusion practices, & organizational characteristics contribute to organizational innovation? Evidence from the UAE. Cogent Business & Management, 8(1), 1947549.
write