What Is a Hostile Work Environment?
“Where you have situations where you have
CEOs who want to open every meeting with prayer,
for non-believers or for those who believe in a
different kind of God, that’s a very difficult situation.”
Dr. Georgette F. Bennett
Gilbert F. Casellas: The definitive answer is: It depends. This is really the crux of the issue in accommodating religion in the workplace and conflicting views
and perspectives. The definition that one uses for
“hostile work environment” is the one you use whether
it is religion, sexual, race-based, [or] national-origin
hostility. Major companies should have policies in place
that address workplace harassment, with those same
definitions about creating a hostile work environment.
Dr. Georgette F. Bennett: The hostile-work-
environment issue comes up primarily in terms of
proselytizing and it can take a variety of forms; it can
be very active proselytizing, and that is a very core
part of a number of religions where you are required
to proselytize. You run into a real civil-rights issue
there—the rights of religious expression versus the
discomfort that some of the people on the receiving
end of the proselytizing may experience … Where you
have situations where you have CEOs, for example,
who want to open every meeting with prayer, for non-believers or for those who believe in a different kind of
