Hillsdale alumnus Aaron Streett holds a press conference in front of the Supreme Court. Courtesy | John Kringas

Hillsdale alumnus Aaron Streett ’99 stood in front of the Supreme Court of the United States in April of 2023, arguing on behalf of his client’s right to set aside Sunday as a day of worship and rest.

The case, Groff v. Dejoy, would see the highest court in the nation produce a stronger standard for protecting employees from workplace discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs, following a 9-0 decision.

“Now, not only will employees be more likely to win their cases,” Streett said, “but it’s honestly more important that employers will take their obligations under the law more seriously and will meet with employees, and they’ll work it out.”

Streett graduated summa cum laude from Hillsdale with a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science, which is what the major was called before it became “politics” in 2000.

“Hillsdale was definitely my first choice after visiting campus,” Streett said. “Just based on the small classes and the liberal arts curriculum, it just seemed like exactly what I was looking for for four years of growing and understanding and also, as it turned out, being prepared perfectly for what I ended up doing.”

Mickey Craig, professor of politics, said he is proud of his former student, but not surprised.

“I can’t remember how many courses he took with me,” Craig said. “Several, and I would say he always made an A, and I think he probably had the highest grade in the class every time, so hard working, smart, and a Christian gentleman.”

Growing up the son of a pastor, author, and seminary professor in Texas, Streett strengthened the principles and beliefs he already held while at Hillsdale, according to Craig.

“I just think he learned more and deepened his faith here, learned what is best about the West, best about the American political tradition, and has applied that in his professional life in a way that’s honorable,” Craig said.

After graduating from Hillsdale, Streett attended The University of Texas at Austin School of Law, where he served as the managing editor of the Texas Review of Law and Politics. Following law school, Streett clerked on the D.C. circuit for Judge David Sentelle and later for former Chief Justice William Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. He then returned to Texas, finding a job at global law firm Baker Botts where he is now a partner.

“Baker Botts was one of the few firms in Texas that sort of combined a great Texas and national appellate practice with the opportunity to do some Supreme Court work,” Streett said. “Being a good conservative traditionalist, I liked that Baker Botts had been around since 1841 and was a great, historic Texas firm that had a hand in a lot of important events throughout Texas history.”

A few years ago, the firm got the chance to impact national history when it came across the case of plaintiff Gerald Groff.

First Liberty Institute, a public-interest law firm that focuses on religious liberty cases, introduced the case to Baker Botts after the district court in Pennsylvania ruled against Groff on his religious accommodation claim, according to Streett.

Groff was an evangelical Christian and employee of the United States Postal Service who took a mail delivery job in 2012. At the time, his position did not require him to work on Sundays, which allowed him to observe his religious beliefs regarding worship and rest on the Sabbath. But that changed after the company entered into a contract with Amazon in 2013.

Groff tried to avoid the requirement by transferring to a more rural area, but when his new work location began demanding the same Sunday shifts, Groff resigned and sued USPS under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“My colleague at the firm argued it in the 3rd Circuit Court, and we got an adverse decision,” Streett said. “But we got a nice dissent from a very well respected judge on the Third Circuit, Judge Thomas Hardiman.”

Title VII requires employers to accommodate an employee’s religious practice unless doing so would create an “undue hardship,” but Hardiman wrote in his opinion that the test for what constitutes this undue hardship has been misunderstood by the Supreme Court and lower courts for a long time.

The test courts would often use was the “more than de minimis” test that came out of the 1977 case Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison. Under this test any request for accommodations that imposed more than a trivial burden on the employer constituted an undue hardship.

But this test had come under criticism as not being a faithful interpretation of Title VII, according to Streett.

“Hardison cannot be reduced to that one phrase,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the opinion of the court. “In describing an employer’s ‘undue hardship’ defense, Hardison referred repeatedly to ‘substantial’ burdens, and that formulation better explains the decision.”

In the end, the court decided on June 29, 2023,  that the “more than de minimis” test was insufficient to constitute undue hardship and created a stricter standard under which a business must show the hardship any accommodations might cause to be “excessive” or “unjustifiable.”

Following the court’s decision, the Groff case will now go through further proceedings under the newly established judicial standard.

“The court often does not apply the law to the facts in the first instance, it leaves that to the lower courts to do,” Streett said. “What that means is we went back down to the federal district court, and both sides filed motions for summary judgment, asking the district court to rule in their favor under the new standard, and we’re waiting for the decision on that.”

The case signals a win for religious liberty in America, according to Craig, and the freedom to act reasonably according to conscience without discrimination.

“There seems to be, at least on the court, a respect for that as the way the law is supposed to be interpreted as being impartial and protecting the individual rights of all citizens,” Craig said. “That, I think, is very important to see that affirmed in these crazy times.”

Streett said that arguing before the Supreme Court is different from arguing in lower courts because it requires longer arguments and a more complicated strategy.

“I look at it as sort of a very strategic and high-level conversation with nine very smart and very well prepared people,” Streett said. “A big difference from the lower courts is they are having to think about even more how their opinion is going to be applied to a wide range of cases across the entire country, and so they are thinking about consequences probably more than lower courts do in a typical case.”

A lot of cases at the Supreme Court, and even in lower appellate courts, go back to the first principles taught at his alma mater, according to Streett.

“Having the historical background, the literary background, even the religious and philosophical background that Hillsdale provided helps inform a lot of those judgments and arguments,” Streett said. “I think the idea of liberal education and reading widely about subjects that you’re not familiar with, and diving in and inhabiting those subjects and understanding from the ground up where those ideas come from, is helpful and is sort of similar to what appellate lawyers do.”