Department of Labor Issues Guidance on Religious Exemption Final Rule FAQs

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Cory D. Halliburton

Cory D. Halliburton

Attorney

214.984.3658
challiburton@freemanlaw.com

Cory Halliburton serves as general counsel and business adviser to a nationwide nonprofit / tax-exempt client base, as well as for multi-state professional service companies. He is a results-oriented attorney, with executive-level strategy and an understanding of the intersection of law and business judgment. With a practical upbringing, he pushes for process-driven results in internal governance, strategy and compliance with employment law, and complex or unique contracts and business relationships.

He dedicated the first ten years of his practice to mainly commercial litigation matters in West Texas and the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. During that experience, Mr. Halliburton transitioned his practice to a more general counsel role, with an emphasis on nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations, advising those organizations through formation, dissolution, litigation, governance, leadership succession, employment law, contracts, intellectual property, tax exemption issues, policy creation, mergers and other. He has served as borrower’s counsel for tax-exempt bond and loan transactions near $100 million aggregate; some with complex pre-issue construction, debt payoff and other debt financing challenges.

Mr. Halliburton also serves as outside legal and business advisor for executive professionals in multi-state engineering firms, with a focus on drafting and counsel on significant service agreements, employment law matters, and protection of trade secrets.

On March 1, 2023, the Department of Labor issued its guidance on Religious Exemption Final Rule Frequently Asked Questions. The DOL’s Guidance dovetails very tightly with the Freeman Law Insights blog published on February 28, 2023, The Righteous Stand Bold Like a Lion: Bostock, Religious Organization Employers, and Title VII. In part, the DOL notes:

[T]he overwhelming weight of Title VII case law confirms—consistently with the views of the EEOC and DOJ—that qualifying religious employers generally may make decisions about whether to employ individuals based on acceptance of and adherence to religious tenets, but may not insist on compliance with such tenets to the extent it would result in violation of the other nondiscrimination provisions, e.g., the prohibitions on discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and sexual orientation, and the prohibition on retaliating against employees because they have asserted their legal rights.

See DOL FAQ Guidance here.

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