In April, Erin Maus, a 34-year-old software engineer at a North Carolina tech-entertainment company, asked her employer for a religious exemption from using AI tools at work. She is a Unitarian Universalist and argued AI conflicted with her faith because of its environmental impact and the ethics of delegating creation. In May the company granted it. Two weeks later Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, a 42,300-word document called Magnifica Humanitas, calling for AI regulation. The legal door for these requests opened in 2023, when the Supreme Court ruled in Groff v. DeJoy that employers face a much higher bar to deny religious accommodations.

1. This Is What Title VII Is For (Maus, Pope Leo XIV, religious-accommodation advocates)

Sincerely held belief, no undue hardship, and the employer agreed.

A worker who can do the job without AI shouldn't have to use it just because her boss says so. Maus told Business Insider she's matching her colleagues' speed writing and reviewing code by hand. Title VII says a sincerely held religious belief is enough; the law doesn't require an organized denomination to back it. The Unitarian Universalist Association hasn't even taken a position on AI yet. Maus's belief stood on its own and the employer agreed it qualified.

The Pope just made the religious case mainstream. Pope Leo XIV's 42,300-word encyclical Magnifica Humanitas calls for governments to regulate AI companies, protect workers from automation, and keep humans in the loop on weapons. Leo took his name from Leo XIII, whose 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum reshaped Catholic doctrine on industrial labor. Maus is Unitarian, not Catholic, and her exemption was granted before the Pope wrote the encyclical. But the argument she made, that AI is in tension with how humans should relate to creation, is now backed by the most-quoted moral authority in the world.

2. This Is A Little Convenient (employers, HR lawyers, skeptics)

80% of white-collar workers refuse AI mandates. A religious case is a useful cover.

80% of white-collar workers already refuse AI mandates. Fortune ran the study in April 2026. Most of those refusers don't have a religious objection. They're worried about job security, skill erosion, and being asked to train their own replacement. A religious framing is a useful cover for broader resistance, and HR lawyers warn employers to expect a wave of similar requests.

3. Groff v. DeJoy Changed the Math (employment lawyers, structural)

The 2023 Supreme Court ruling made it much harder for employers to deny religious accommodations.

In 2023 the Supreme Court unanimously raised the bar for denying religious accommodations. Groff v. DeJoy involved a Christian postal worker who wouldn't deliver on Sundays. For decades employers could deny accommodations by showing "more than a de minimis cost." Groff replaced that with "substantial in the overall context of an employer's business." The 9-0 decision rewrote what counts as undue hardship.

Maus's exemption is the test case for AI. If she's matching her colleagues' output by hand, the employer can't show "substantial" cost. Title VII suddenly has teeth regarding AI mandates. HR Dive and Bloomberg Law warned this is shaping up like the COVID vaccine accommodation wave: a corporate mandate, a religious objection, and a Supreme Court precedent that favors the worker.

Where This Lands

A Unitarian software engineer got out of using AI at work. Some say this sort of thing is exactly what Title VII protects, and the Pope's encyclical just gave the religious case a much louder voice. Others say 80% of white-collar workers already refuse AI mandates, so a religious frame is convenient cover. And underneath both is Groff v. DeJoy, which makes denying these requests much riskier than it was three years ago.

Sources