Religious Freedom and Professional Sports: the Case of the NBA Players Observing the Ramadan Fast

In an increasingly diverse society, a major challenge rises from the interaction between religious freedom of the individuals and the rules of the organizations they work for. In such a scenario, the NBA, one of the most international and multicultural professional sport leagues, provides a very interesting locus of analysis. In fact, its crucial stages – the Playoffs and the Finals – take place from April to June, a period which will (in part) coincide, in the next few years, with the Ramadan month, during which all Muslims, according to a religious obligation, have to fast from dawn to sunset. The presence of observant Muslim players in the NBA poses several legal issues. The Authors primarily cope with the hypothetical scenario of a Muslim professional player that abstains from carrying out the working performance or whose working performance is poor as a direct consequence of his religion-related conduct, wondering how such conducts would be qualified according to US employment and antidiscrimination law. Ultimately, the paper focuses on the employer’s due role in facilitating the athlete’s exercise of religious freedom, pursuant to the eventual developments of employment antidiscrimination law, which requires an (inter)active role of the employer in guaranteeing the employee’s exercise of religious freedom and not only the employer’s abstention from a disparate treatment based on the employee’s religious conduct.