By Dr. Neal Ternes
On Friday June 12, the San Francisco Giants held their annual Pride Night, celebrating the LGBTQIA community with, among other things, special hats which featured the team’s interlocking “SF” logo in rainbow colors. Acting in protest, three pitchers, starter Landon Roupp and relievers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker, wrote “Genesis 9:13-15” on their hats, a reference to the story of Noah in the bible which states; “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” The verse has been used by conservative religious groups to reappropriate the rainbow symbolism used by the LGBTQIA. It was also not the first time an MLB player included the message on their cap, as Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw did in 2025.
Headline-drawing kerfuffles over the beliefs of players towards Pride Night and the LGBTQIA community have not been exclusive to MLB either. Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker delivered a 2024 commencement speech at Benedictine College in which he warned against “people pushing dangerous gender ideologies” and “a deadly sin sort of pride that has a month dedicated to it.” And in 2026 the Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivy after he posted a video on Instagram lambasting the NBA’s promotion of pride month as “unrighteous.”
Some fans in San Francisco took umbrage with the message, booing Roupp in his subsequent start. Major League Baseball (MLB) released a statement that writing on the cap violated MLB rules and that players were warned against future violations but took no further action to discipline Roupp or the other players. However, the warning triggered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch an investigation into MLB for discrimination against the players based on their religion.
However, it is unlikely that the DOJ investigation will find that MLB or the Giants discriminated against the protesting players.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin unless the employer demonstrates that providing a religious accommodation would place undue hardship on the employer’s business. To establish a religious accommodation claim, plaintiffs must demonstrate that they have a bona-fide religious belief that conflicts with an employment requirement, that they informed the employer of their beliefs and how they conflicted with policy, and that the employer disciplined them for failing to comply with the requirement that conflicted with religious beliefs (see, e.g., Philbrook v. Ansonia Bd. of Education [2nd. Cir. 1985], Chalmers v. Tulon Co. of Richmond [4th Cir. 1996]). If the employee establishes these facts, then the employer must demonstrate that accommodating their employee’s religious belief would cause undue hardship on their business.
In 2023, the Supreme Court decision Groff v. DeJoy clarified that an employer must demonstrate that establishing a religious accommodation for an employee creates substantially increased cost to their business for the accommodation to be classified as undue hardship. In other words, employers have a very high bar to clear to prove that any religious accommodation for their employees is allowable under Title VII.
Furthermore, an employer cannot use the animosity of other employees towards a religious belief or practice to rationalize accommodation as undue. As the court noted in Groff, “If bias or hostility to a religious practice or a religious accommodation provided a defense to a reasonable accommodation claim, Title VII would be at war with itself.” In other words, even though the religious views expressed by the players in San Francisco may not be popular, their employer must still accommodate them.
So, did the Giants or MLB infringe on the rights of the protesting pitchers? The team did not force the players to remove their hats or switch them out, meaning the players were still allowed to express their religious views. MLB’s postgame to players that they were not allowed to write on their uniforms was a reminder of policy written in league’s collective bargaining agreement which states “no alterations, writing or illustrations, other than as authorized herein, are to be made to any part of the uniform.” This policy is generally applied to all speech added to a player’s uniform, not a content-specific restriction on the religious expression of specific players. MLB noted in a follow-up message to the Justice Department that the league had sent similar notes to players who wrote names of family members or messages like ‘Happy Mother’s Day, I Love Mom,’ on their uniforms.
Moreover, recent examples from both MLB and other major sports leagues illustrate potential alternatives that the Giants players could have taken. In 2026 Dodgers players Blake Treinen and Alex Call both opted to wear their normal hats rather than ones with the rainbow logo for their teams’ games. NWSL player Jalene Daniels similarly refused to wear a rainbow-colored Pride kit during a game in 2022. In 2023 Philadelphia Flyers player Ivan Provorov opted out of team warmups which featured rainbow-themed jerseys and a rainbow themed hockey stick. The Giants players could have similarly worn their normal baseball caps rather than ones with the rainbow-colored logo or, alternatively, the players could have been given the option not to dress for the game, and the team could have used different members of their pitching staff.
We do not know if the Giants players sought or were offered alternatives, but their employment was not significantly impacted beyond receipt of the letter from MLB reminding them of the policy. Absent any punishment that impacted the employment of the players, the DOJ would be missing the third element of the test for an accommodation claim. Absent additional evidence that shows the players informed the team that they had a religious objection to the pride night hat and that their employer refused to provide them with an adequate alternative, it cannot be said that the players’ civil rights were violated.
Dr. Neal Ternes is an Assistant Professor of Sport Management at Northern Illinois University. His research interests include free speech in sports, intercollegiate athletics, and the politics of sport.
