Security Guard Had Sundays Off for Three Years as a Church Deacon — the EEOC Says His Employer Switched Him to Weekends and He Resigned

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For nearly three years, a part-time security guard in New Orleans built his life around a predictable tradeoff: he’d work the shifts the company needed, and he’d keep Sundays free for church. Then, he says, the schedule changed—suddenly and in a way that put his job on a collision course with his faith.

That’s the heart of a new federal lawsuit announced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, laid out in the agency’s release about the case. The EEOC alleges The Cogar Group, a security services company based in Fairfax, Virginia, refused to accommodate the worker’s Sunday religious obligations and effectively forced his resignation.

Three years of one schedule, then a sudden weekend switch

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, the employee worked part-time in New Orleans and had Sundays off from March 2021 through early 2024. That kind of consistency matters in security work, where schedules can be the whole job—especially if you’re piecing income together around other responsibilities.

In February 2024, the EEOC says the company told him his schedule would change to Saturday and Sunday. Weekends are prime coverage days in many security posts, but the worker told his supervisor the change would interfere with his religious beliefs.

The EEOC describes him as a devout Baptist and a deacon, and says his faith requires him to attend church on Sundays. In other words: this wasn’t a casual preference or a once-in-a-while request. Sundays were the point.

He asked for an accommodation—then the pressure tightened

The lawsuit frames the next step as straightforward: the guard raised the conflict as soon as he learned about the weekend shift change and asked for his Sunday church attendance to be accommodated.

The EEOC alleges The Cogar Group refused to alter the new schedule. With no adjustment, the guard was left staring down a choice that people dread in real life: miss church obligations tied to his role as a deacon, or lose the job.

He resigned, the EEOC says—describing it as a forced resignation because the employer wouldn’t make room for the religious practice.

The EEOC says the law doesn’t let employers force that choice

The agency is bringing the case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law bars employers from failing to accommodate an employee’s religious practices unless doing so would create an “undue hardship.”

In the EEOC’s telling, this wasn’t a complicated dispute about performance or misconduct. It was about scheduling, a request for a religious accommodation, and a “no” that ended the employment.

“Federal law entitles employees to accommodations for their religious practices,” said Michael Kirkland, director of the EEOC’s New Orleans Field Office. “Absent undue hardship, it is unlawful for an employer to force an employee to choose between his religious practice and his job.”

Jacqueline Barber, a senior trial attorney in the EEOC’s New Orleans Field Office, put it even more plainly: “When it is feasible for an employer to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs, but it chooses not to, the employer violates Title VII.”

How it escalated from a schedule dispute to federal court

The EEOC says it tried to resolve the matter before filing suit, using its conciliation process—a step meant to reach a settlement without litigation. That didn’t produce an agreement, so the agency moved forward in court.

The case is filed as EEOC v. The Cogar Group, Ltd. (Case No. 2:26-cv-00661) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The release also notes the worker is a disabled veteran, a personal detail that adds to the real-world stakes even though the EEOC’s announced claim here centers on religion and accommodation under Title VII. For someone working part-time, losing even a “small” job can mean losing stability fast.

What people fixate on in cases like this: paper trails and “undue hardship”

The EEOC’s announcement doesn’t include public comments, but the fault lines in this kind of dispute are familiar: what exactly the employee requested, what options were on the table, and what the employer could have done without blowing up operations.

In practical terms, these cases often hinge on documentation—when the schedule changed, how the request was made, whether alternative shifts existed, and whether the employer explored them. Employers frequently argue that accommodations aren’t workable; employees and enforcement agencies argue the employer didn’t really try.

The other pressure point is the legal phrase “undue hardship.” Title VII doesn’t require an employer to grant every request no matter what, but it also doesn’t allow a flat refusal just because accommodating is inconvenient. The lawsuit signals the EEOC believes adjusting this schedule was doable and that the refusal crossed the line.

A job ended, and now the schedule dispute becomes a test case

At the center of the EEOC’s lawsuit is a simple sequence: a long-standing arrangement that kept Sundays open, a shift change that put church obligations in the crosshairs, a request to keep attending Sunday services, and a refusal that ended with the worker walking away from the job.

Now it’s in federal court, where the company will have a chance to respond and the EEOC will have to prove its claims. For everyone else watching, it’s a reminder that “just a scheduling change” can land like a termination when it collides with a non-negotiable part of someone’s life.