Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, AGENCY NEWS—OPM memo supports federal employees’ proselytization, provides examples of permissible religious expression, (Jul 29, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

Employees may attempt to “persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views,” and may also encourage coworkers to participate in prayer and other expressions of faith, the memo provides.

A new memo issued by the Director of OPM seeks to provide “guidance to agencies on robustly protecting and enforcing each Federal employee’s right to engage in religious expression in the Federal workplace consistent with the U.S. Constitution, Title VII, and other applicable sources of law.” The memo states that it is intended to be read in conjunction with a previous memo issued by OPM regarding reasonable accommodations for religious purposes.

“Agencies should allow personal religious expression by Federal employees to the greatest extent possible unless such expression would impose an undue hardship on business operations,” the memo instructs. They should also review and revise as necessary internal policies to “ensure that they appropriately protect religious expression.”

To that end, the memo states:

“Employees must be allowed to engage in private religious expression in work areas to the same extent that they may engage in nonreligious private expression. Agencies may, however, reasonably regulate the time, place and manner of all employee speech, provided such regulations do not discriminate based on content or viewpoint (including religious viewpoints). Agencies may require that employees perform official work while on duty, as opposed to engaging in personal religious observances.”

Categories of conduct. It lists categories of conduct that should not result in disciplinary or corrective action, including: display and use of items used for religious purposes or religious icons, with examples including bibles, crosses, and posts, among other things; expressions by groups of federal employees, so long as they do not occur during on-duty time; and conversations between federal employees regarding religious topics, including, among other things, “attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views,” so long as they are not harassing, and encouraging coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer.

The memo also includes expressions among or directed at members of the public, so long as they are made as a private citizen and it is not a statement made pursuant to official duties, and expressions in areas accessible to the public, which should be treated in the same manner as those made in areas inaccessible to the public.

Examples. An appendix to the memo provides some examples of the types of religious expression permitted under the guidance, along with some points of clarification. For example, while an agency may restrict all posters, it may not single out religious posters for harsher treatment. It states that an employee is allowed to “invite another to worship at her church despite belonging to a different faith.” Other examples include that a VA hospital doctor “may pray over his patient for her recovery” and a receptionist in a VA Medical Center doctor’s office “may pray with a coworker in the patients’ waiting area.”

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