The Trump Administration has released guidance to ensure federal agencies protect federal employees’ religious liberty at work, including the freedom to share their faith with coworkers.

In a memo issued July 28 by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the administration cites the Free Exercise Clause and refers to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in the workforce based on religion.  

The memo’s opening section emphasizes that permitting religious discrimination in the federal workplace is unlawful.

“The Federal workforce should be a welcoming place for Federal employees who practice a religious faith,” the memo states. “Allowing religious discrimination in the federal workplace violates the law. It also threatens to adversely impact recruitment and retention of highly-qualified employees of faith.”

Categories of protected religious conduct include but are not limited to displaying and using items intended for religious purposes as well as engaging in religious topics in conversation. In both public and private, employees cannot be restrained from speaking about their religious beliefs. However, employers can limit speech in official duties involving statements.

The measure clarifies that supervisors and employees can attempt “to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature” and “encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers to participate in other personal activities.”

OPM Director Scott Kupor spoke to Fox News Digital: “Federal employees should never have to choose between their faith and their career. … Under President Trump’s leadership, we are restoring constitutional freedoms and making government a place where people of faith are respected, not sidelined.”

The memo quotes two of Trump’s executive orders this year—Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias, signed in February, and the Establishment of the Religious Liberty Commission, signed in May. The February order requires the identification, termination and rectification of “any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians.” The May mandate ordered the establishment of a commission that protects “parental rights in religious education, school choice, conscience protections, attacks on houses of worship, free speech for religious entities, and institutional autonomy.”

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