To the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission:
PUBLIC COMMENT – Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 – Brian J. Grim
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the draft report of the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission. I submit these comments as President of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, as a former senior researcher on global restrictions on religion at the Pew Research Center, and as someone whose life’s work has been shaped by missionary experience, Catholic conversion, social science research, and practical engagement with business leaders seeking to build workplaces where people of all faiths and none can contribute with dignity.
I welcome the report’s central conviction that religious liberty is not merely a private benefit for believers, but a public good. I also welcome the report’s recognition that religious liberty protects believers, nonbelievers, and those still searching for what they believe. It strengthens communities, enriches civic life, and requires vigilance, education, and renewed commitment from institutions and citizens. That broader cultural emphasis is essential. Religious liberty cannot be sustained only through litigation after harm has occurred. It must also be cultivated through the ordinary institutions where people live, learn, work, serve, worship, dissent, and build trust across difference.
My principal recommendation is that the final report should strengthen its treatment of the private sector and workplace culture. Chapter 13 rightly recognizes that private employers, professional organizations, commercial enterprises, and other institutions provide jobs to millions of Americans, and that people of faith should not be required to leave their religious convictions behind when entering the workplace, engaging in commerce, serving their communities, or participating in public debate. I strongly support that conclusion.
At the same time, I encourage the Commission to go further. The workplace is not only a site where religious liberty may be violated. It is also one of the most important places where religious liberty can be made real.
My understanding of this reality came not first from research, but from experience. In Saudi Arabia, I learned what it meant to bring only the smallest version of myself to work. My Catholic faith had to remain hidden. Even mentioning Christmas could have cost me my job. Later, in the United Arab Emirates after September 11, Muslim officers at a national military academy recognized that I was Catholic and invited me to remain and pray with them. At a moment of profound global fear, they did not treat my faith as a threat. They recognized it, respected it, and made room for it.
That contrast became a turning point in my life. Religious freedom became for me not only a constitutional or legal principle, but the practical freedom to live and work without hiding one’s soul. It is the freedom to seek truth, follow conscience, live with integrity, and contribute to the good of others without being forced to amputate the deepest part of oneself.
For most Americans, religious freedom is not experienced primarily in courtrooms, agencies, or legislative hearings. It is experienced in the practical conditions of daily life: whether an employee can request time off for a holy day without fear of being viewed as less committed; whether a worker can wear religious dress or symbols without penalty; whether a manager knows how to handle a religious accommodation request with fairness and respect; whether employees can participate in faith-and-belief employee resource groups; whether Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, humanists, atheists, and others can speak from conscience without being stereotyped, pressured, or silenced; and whether people can bring not only their skills, but also their integrity, moral judgment, sense of vocation, and deepest sources of purpose to work.
This is why I urge the Commission to frame workplace religious liberty not only as protection from discrimination, but also as a positive social capability. The goal should not be to make workplaces religious. The goal should be to make them more human.
In my current work with companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and elsewhere, I have seen that many leading employers are beginning to understand religion or belief as part of a broader human capital and culture agenda. The most mature organizations do not treat religion or belief merely as a compliance risk or occasional HR problem. They develop the capacity to engage religion, belief, and non-belief with clarity, confidence, and care. They build fair policies, train managers, support employee networks, recognize holy days, provide practical accommodation processes, and create cultures where people can disagree respectfully while maintaining trust.
I encourage the Commission to add a practical workplace framework to its final recommendations, building on the “Know Your Rights” approach already included in the draft report. A stronger private-sector section could encourage the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Justice, and relevant agencies to develop not only posters, but also practical implementation resources for employers, including:
- — model guidance for religious accommodation processes and manager training;
- — best-practice examples of faith-and-belief employee resource groups and respectful dialogue initiatives;
- — guidance on religious expression, holy days, dress, grooming, prayer, dietary needs, and conscience concerns;
- — resources that help employers distinguish protected religious expression from harassment, discrimination, and religious prejudice; and
- — practical tools for measuring and improving workplace religious freedom and religion-or-belief inclusion.
The report should also recognize that the future of religious liberty will increasingly intersect with artificial intelligence and technology governance. AI tools are already being used in hiring, scheduling, monitoring, performance assessment, workforce planning, communication, promotion, and employee development. These tools may affect religious employees in subtle but significant ways. Automated scheduling systems may fail to account for Sabbath observance or holy days. AI-enabled performance systems may reward availability patterns that unintentionally disadvantage employees with religious commitments. Content moderation tools may misclassify religious speech. Talent systems may overlook the deeper sources of integrity, judgment, courage, service, and purpose that faith and belief often help form.
As organizations become more technologically powerful, they must also become more human. Religious liberty and freedom of conscience belong in that conversation.
I therefore recommend that the Commission add language encouraging employers, regulators, and technology developers to consider religious liberty, conscience, dignity, and meaningful human oversight in the deployment of AI and algorithmic systems affecting workers. Religious freedom in the next 250 years will not be protected only by remembering the Founding. It will also require foresight about the systems now shaping human identity, opportunity, speech, and belonging.
I also encourage the Commission to emphasize that religious liberty is strengthened when it is understood globally, not only domestically. America’s constitutional tradition has inspired many beyond our shores. At the same time, Americans can learn from global experience. My research at Pew showed that religious freedom is shaped by both government restrictions and social hostilities. Law matters deeply, but social pressure also matters. A person may have formal rights and still feel unable to live openly because of workplace hostility, social stigma, institutional silence, or fear of retaliation.
This suggests that the Commission’s final report should continue to stress legal protections while also making clear that religious freedom is sustained by culture. The question is not only whether government refrains from coercion. It is whether society has the habits, institutions, and civic imagination to make room for conscience and conviction across deep differences.
For that reason, I strongly support the report’s call for education, public awareness, and “Know Your Rights” resources. I would add that public education should be framed in a way that is invitational rather than merely defensive. Americans need to know not only what religious liberty protects them from, but what it frees them for: service, charity, civic responsibility, moral formation, neighborly love, truthful disagreement, and human flourishing.
Religious liberty must not become the possession of one political party, one religious tradition, or one cultural faction. It is too important for that. Properly understood, it protects the church, synagogue, mosque, temple, gurdwara, school, hospital, business, family, dissenter, seeker, convert, and nonbeliever. It protects the person whose convictions are popular and the person whose convictions are misunderstood. It protects the religious institution that serves from faith and the individual employee who seeks to live with integrity at work.
As America marks 250 years of independence, the Commission has an opportunity to help the nation look not only backward to 1776, but forward to 2276. Religious liberty must remain a living freedom, one that protects conscience, welcomes conviction, makes room for disagreement, and encourages every person to contribute to the common good.
The next chapter of religious freedom should not be written only for the people. It should be written by the people and of the people, with a renewed commitment to every person’s freedom to seek truth, follow conscience, and contribute to human flourishing.
Thank you for your work and for inviting public comment.
Respectfully submitted,
Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.
President, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation