The Dogma Within? Examining Religious Bias in Private Title VII Claims

In recent years, American politicians have become increasingly concerned that judges who identify as Christian are making decisions based on that identity—that Christian judges harbor a certain “dogma” within them that shapes their decision making. In this article, we investigate whether this concern is warranted by examining how such judges handle claims that are brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits private discrimination in employment on the basis of religion. By focusing on decision making in cases of private discrimination—rather than public discrimination—we make progress on a theoretical conundrum that has dogged previous efforts to identify causal effects in religious accommodation cases. However, our tests produce little evidence to support the idea that Christian judges are more likely than their non-Christian colleagues to favor claimants, even in this alternative domain. Our findings therefore suggest that the current political focus on possible bias among Christian judges is empirically unfounded, at least in situations of religious accommodation.