Religious California state job applicant lost offer over ‘loyalty oath,’ lawsuit says

To keep your state job, do you owe more loyalty to your employer than your God?

That’s a question Brianna Bolden-Hardge wants a federal court to decide in a lawsuit filed in Sacramento this week that claims the State Controller’s Office rescinded a job offer to her because of her religious beliefs.

Bolden-Hardge, a 31-year-old mother of two who has worked for the state in various jobs since 2016, says she faced illegal discrimination when she was offered a job working in the payroll department of the Controller’s Office in the summer of 2017.

“Bolden-Hardge accepted the job offer,” her lawsuit says. “After fulfilling all job qualifications and passing required criminal-record and background checks, Bolden-Hardge was confirmed to have passed all pre-employment requirements.

“She was told her first workday would be August 7, 2017.”

But Bolden-Hardge is a Jehovah’s Witness, and when the Controller’s Office asked her to sign a loyalty oath to the U.S. and state constitutions and promise to defend the state “against all enemies,” she balked, the lawsuit says.

“Based on religious teachings, Bolden-Hardge sincerely believes that the language in the prescribed oath — including swearing faith and allegiance to the state and swearing to ‘defend ... against all enemies, foreign and domestic’ — would require her to put her allegiance to the government over her allegiance to God and likewise commit her to take up arms in defense of the state, all in violation of her sincerely held religious beliefs,” the suit says. “Indeed, signing the oath would compel Bolden-Hardge to affirmatively state and affirm something contrary to her faith.”

Bolden-Hardge had already given notice at her old job at the California Franchise Tax Board, where she had not been required to sign the loyalty oath after she declined to do so, her lawsuit says.

Initially, she asked State Controller Betty Yee’s office in writing for an accommodation based on her religious faith, offering a week before she was to start work “to sign the oath but with an accompanying indication that her allegiance was first and foremost to God and that she would not take up arms,” the lawsuit says.

Instead of accepting the compromise, Yee’s office “pushed her start date back a week, claiming it needed time for its human resources and legal departments to review the matter,” the lawsuit says.

“A few days later, the (Controller’s Office) rescinded Bolden-Hardge’s job offer on the stated ground that the oath requirement could not be modified and her proposed addendum would constitute a modification,” the suit says.

Yee’s office did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

But the lawsuit, filed by religious liberty clinics from Harvard and Stanford law schools and Oakland attorney Wendy Musell, a well-known lawyer for state employee whistleblowers, says other state agencies had no problem in accommodating Bolden-Hardge’s religion.

When she returned to her old job at the Franchise Tax Board for six months, she was asked to sign the loyalty oath, but allowed to include the addendum she had written stating her primary devotion is to God, the lawsuit says.

Later, she accepted jobs at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California Department of Housing and Community Development, neither of which required her to sign an oath, the lawsuit says.

As a Jehovah’s Witness, Bolden-Hardge is one of 1.3 million American members of the religion, the lawsuit says.

“Consistent with the religious beliefs of other Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bolden-Hardge has come to sincerely believe that her faith forbids her from (1) swearing primary allegiance to any human government and, correspondingly, (2) swearing to engage in political or military activity — including taking up of arms,” her suit says.

“Rather, Bolden-Hardge’s sincerely held religious beliefs mandate that her allegiance is first and foremost to the kingdom of God — which she believes to be a government in heaven — and that she cannot engage in any sort of violence in support of a human government. “

The likelihood of the Controller’s Office job requiring such sacrifice seems minimal, the suit says.

“She understood that this position would primarily involve training and assisting with the agency’s payroll,” the suit says. “None of the position’s job duties require taking up arms, nor does the job present any particular security risk.”

The oath is contained in the California constitution and requires all employees to take it, although there have been efforts to sidestep that, including a 2009 bill that sought to provide for a modified oath for employees with moral or religious objections to the state’s wording.

Loyalty oaths and anti-communism measures passed during the McCarthy era have been targeted over the years, particularly after some employees found themselves jobless because of their refusal to sign such oaths because of personal moral beliefs.

“Members of some religions, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, are precluded by their faith from taking oaths,” an analysis of the 2009 bill stated. “Others, such as Quakers, are committed by faith to pacifism and interpret the phrase ‘defend (the constitution) against all enemies, foreign and domestic’ as requiring them to participate in war or violence.

“In 2008, two Quakers were denied employment by the California State University system for refusing to sign or altering the loyalty oath because it conflicted with their religious beliefs. Only after lawsuits were filed and the CSU suffered significant public criticism were those instructors ultimately hired.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed that measure, and the lawsuit says he wrongly argued at the time that “such an express exemption was ‘unnecessary’ because ‘(e)xisting law already requires public employers, including the State of California, to accommodate an employee whose sincerely held religious beliefs conflict with an employment requirement,’” the lawsuit says.

Because the job offer was rescinded, Bolden-Hardge filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and received EEOC permission to file her suit in July, the suit says.

The lawsuit claims violations of federal and state law, including violations of her First Amendment rights, and seeks an injunction against Yee’s office to stop if from requiring loyalty oaths to be signed.

The suit also seeks compensation for lost wages and pain and suffering.

This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 11:13 AM.