In a notable recent decision in Rothman v. U.S. Tennis Association, Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York held that the U.S. Tennis Association (the USTA) was not obligated to adjust the schedule for an amateur tennis tournament to accommodate the religious observance of Orthodox Jewish competitors.1 The court ruled that the plaintiffs—the members of a 55-and-over amateur tennis team made up mostly of Sabbath-observing Orthodox Jewish players—had failed to demonstrate that the USTA’s scheduling decisions, in particular requiring teams to play tournament matches on Saturdays, were made with a discriminatory intent.
This decision is the first in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and one of the few in the country to address whether federal antidiscrimination laws require private businesses to accommodate their customers’ and other constituents’ religious observances. The Rothman decision makes clear that, so long as they do not act with any discriminatory intent, business policies and decisions of private businesses will not be disturbed simply because those policies or decisions conflict with some constituents’ religious observances. The authors represented the USTA in this case.
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