Legal Docket: Coexistence by command
Date
08/03/2026
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Legal Docket: Coexistence by command
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WORLD Radio - Legal Docket: Coexistence by command
A lifeguard captain’s religious-accommodation case tests how lower courts will apply the Supreme Court’s strengthened workplace protections in Groff v. DeJoy. Also: a Michigan settlement brings damages and new conscience protections for healthcare workers. WORLD’s legal-affairs correspondent Mary Reichard reports.
Lifeguard Station 18 painted in the colors of the Progess Pride flag at Will Rogers State Beach, June 3, 2024 in Pacific Palisades, California Getty Images / Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP
Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.
NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for August 3rd, 2026. Thanks for joining us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.
MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Time now for Legal Docket, summer edition, where we look at first-freedom cases making their way through the lower courts.
This time, a workplace dispute involving a lifeguard captain and a Pride Month flag policy—and a request by the captain for religious accommodation, so everybody can coexist, as the bumper sticker says.
EICHER: Jeffrey Little has worked in the L.A. County Fire Department’s Lifeguard Division for more than two decades. He worked his way up to ocean lifeguard captain, responsible for stations and the people who work there.
But the legal fight he is now in has nothing to do with high surf or rip currents.
It is about whether a government employer can require him to raise—or direct his crew to raise—a flag he says conflicts with his Christian worldview.
REICHARD: Little says it all started in 2023, when LA County adopted a policy that required county facilities to fly the Progress Pride flag during the month of June. That included locations within the county fire department that oversees the lifeguard division.
Little is a Christian and wasn’t sure what to do.
LITTLE: Back in June of 2023, the County Los Angeles put out a proclamation that all stations within the LA County Fire Department were required to fly the Progress Pride Pride flag. And so I did not know what to do. I was torn on whether I should participate in this policy. And so I simply requested to be exempt from participating or regulating or raising the flag myself.
EICHER: Little says his objection was not personal hostility toward anyone. He says he wanted to remain faithful to his beliefs while continuing to serve as a county lifeguard.
LITTLE: Yeah, I come from a Christian faith and that I really just want to be authentic and be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. And that's a priority in all facets of my life, including my workplace. And I felt that I would be living a lie by going along with this policy and carrying out the responsibilities that were demanded of me.
REICHARD: Little says human resources initially accommodated him. He would not have to work at a location that flies the flag, nor would he have to raise it himself or direct others to do so.
He thought that settled the problem.
But when he arrived for work, he says he found three Progress Pride flags flying at locations in his area of responsibility.
LITTLE: And so I was met with confusion, because we had just entered into this agreement with HR and all the decision makers. And yet the first day there I was met with these flags greeting me at the workplace in which I was now responsible for.
EICHER: Little took the flags down.
He says he believed that was consistent with the accommodation he had received.
But L.A. County sees that differently.
The county says Little was not authorized to remove government-issued flags, and that the discipline that followed was about his conduct and his refusal to follow policy—not about his religious beliefs.
REICHARD: L.A. County did not respond to my request for comment. In its court filings, though, it makes clear that it disputes Little’s account of both the accommodation and the discipline.
That distinction is central to the case.
Little is not asking the county to stop flying the Progress Pride flag. The county may speak for itself.
The question is whether it had to find a way for Little to remain on the job.
Little says the next day, his division chief gave him a direct order.
LITTLE: I was confronted by our chief lifeguard. And he reiterated over and over again and kept on reciting that my beliefs don't matter and the only thing that matters is that I'm an LA County employee and I need to do what I'm told. And at that time he, he put it in not only in verbally, but he put in a writing in the form of a direct order and a notice of instruction that I was to comply with this policy or I'd be at risk of being terminated.
His attorney is Nathan Loyd with Thomas More Society:
LITTLE: And if I can add the exact language in that written notice, I, I pulled it up before our call today. He says that Captain Little must raise the flag “irrespective of personal beliefs,” which was, that's a, a stunning statement, because it, it really shows that the county just did not care what…Captain Little's religious beliefs were or why he might even have an objection.
The lawsuit includes several claims, but two are especially important for the listener to understand.
First, Title VII—the federal law that protects employees from religious discrimination.
EICHER: Under Title VII, an employer must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious practice unless doing so would create an undue hardship for the employer’s own business.
Three years ago, in a case called Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court said employers must meet a higher bar than before, proving a substantial burden, and not just a trivial one.
Lawyer Loyd says LA County can’t meet that standard.
LOYD: And in this case, our argument has been, look the Los Angeles County lifeguards can still function just fine with granting Captain Little an accommodation from raising the Pride Progress flag. It's not like somebody's going to die because he refuses to put up this flag. Nothing's going to happen. They can easily accommodate him.
REICHARD: Little’s second major claim arises because his employer is the government. He alleges that county officials violated his First Amendment right to freely exercise his religion.
Loyd says the county had several practical alternatives.
LOYD: Somebody else can raise the flag in his place. Maybe they just don't even have to raise the flag. Maybe Captain Little can be placed at one of the dozens of locations where they don't even fly the Pride Progress flag. The county can still get out its message, can still do its government speech, but there's no reason to force Captain Little to participate in it.
The county disagrees the answer was that simple.
In court documents, it argues that an exception could create operational and staffing burdens. It also says Little’s removal of the flags was unauthorized and that he was disciplined for failing to do what his position required.
EICHER: That is why this case is more complicated than the public argument over what the flag means.
Supporters see the Progress Pride flag as a statement of welcome and inclusion. Little sees the message as approving conduct and identity that his religious convictions cannot approve, and that the state message is being imposed upon him.
A court is not being asked to decide whose beliefs are better. It is being asked whether the county’s response to Little’s requested accommodation was lawful.
REICHARD: And that means sorting out the facts: What exactly did the county initially agree to? Why was that arrangement changed? What duties could Little have performed without raising the flag? And what burden, if any, would an accommodation have imposed on the lifeguard division?
The dispute has taken a personal toll, Little says. He used vacation time during Pride Month to avoid further conflict.
But he says he has also received encouragement.
LITTLE: The highlight has been the support that I've received from Christians and people of faith from all around the world. It has really been a wild ride. Hearing from so many people who support and want me to fight this on their behalf. And so that has propelled me forward and gives me the energy to keep fighting every day.
EICHER: A federal judge recently issued a mixed ruling on summary-judgment motions, leaving key claims and factual disputes unresolved.
This case could matter beyond a flag policy in Los Angeles.
It tests how specifically a government employer must consider a religious accommodation—and how much practical evidence it needs before saying no.
REICHARD: And now, a related development from Michigan.
Unlike Little’s case, which is still moving through court, this one has ended in a settlement.
Valerie Kloosterman is a physician assistant. Five years ago, she raised faith-based concerns about mandatory training and her hospital’s gender-identity policies.
She says she was fired. She sued under Title VII, arguing that her employer had discriminated against her because of her faith.
Her attorney, Kayla Toney with First Liberty Institute, says the settlement provides both money damages and a change in hospital policy.
TONEY: The University of Michigan Health-West will be paying $410,000 in damages and legal fees. And the most important piece of the settlement is that we have a policy change. So the hospital system will be providing religious accommodations to healthcare providers and employees who have religious objections to participating in gender transitions. And employees also will not be forced to use pronouns that go against their conscience or their religious beliefs…..that's all because Valerie stood strong and stood up for what was right.
EICHER: A settlement is not a court ruling. But it does resolve Kloosterman’s claims and, according to her lawyers, establishes a process for religious-accommodation requests across the hospital system.
Kloosterman says the experience deepened her conviction that Christians can hold firm to their beliefs while treating others with love.
KLOOSTERMAN: First Corinthians 16 verse 13, right? Says, be watchful. Stand firm in the faith, right? Be strong, but let everything that you do be done in love. So in in any situations, we're called to be faithful to our Creator God. But we're to do that in love. So care for people with love, but give them what we know they need from a godly and biblical perspective….That people would stand firm, that they would be light and salt wherever God has placed them, whether it's as a provider or as an employee, as a janitor, as a referral coordinator, that they really truly see who they're working with and working for as people created in the image of God.
REICHARD: Kloosterman is again serving as a physician assistant elsewhere. And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.
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