On September 15, 2026, the Justice Department announced a settlement with Lincoln Memorial University concerning its DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine. The matter arose under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, and it was investigated jointly by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the HHS Office for Civil Rights.
What happened
According to the Justice Department, during the 2025-26 academic year the college denied Jewish students' requests to reschedule classes and examinations for religious observance, while approving the same kinds of requests from other students. When students challenged the practice in January 2026, the college adopted a new policy that denied all religious accommodations, while continuing to permit absences for professional student leadership obligations and other secular reasons.
The second policy did not solve the problem. It made the comparison explicit.
What the settlement requires
The college must revise its absence policy to provide excused absences for religious reasons on the same basis as non-religious reasons, with no academic penalty for an approved absence. It must train students, administrators, faculty, and staff on the revised policy. It must reverse the penalties imposed on Jewish students who were wrongly denied accommodations during 2025-26. The Justice Department will close its investigation once the college completes those commitments.
Title VI does not list religion. Federal agencies apply it to discrimination against Jewish students as discrimination based on shared ancestry, a form of national origin discrimination. The lesson for attendance policies does not depend on that theory, however. The test the settlement applies is a comparison, and it applies to any policy.
The comparison test
The question is not whether a policy mentions religion. It is whether the policy treats religious reasons for absence at least as well as the secular reasons it already accepts.
Most attendance policies excuse a long list of absences: athletic competition, student government and leadership duties, conference presentations, jury duty, military service, illness, and bereavement. Some are written down. Others are handled informally by individual faculty. A policy that excuses those absences but treats religious observance as unexcused, or leaves it to the discretion of each instructor, invites the same comparison the Justice Department drew here.
How to check a policy
Institutions and districts should list every category of absence they excuse, including those excused in practice without a written rule.
Confirm that religious observance is excused on the same terms, with the same notice requirements, the same make-up opportunities, and the same protection from grade penalties.
Remove instructor-by-instructor discretion over whether religious absences count, or bound that discretion with a written standard and a route to review.
Keep a record of requests and decisions. The college in this matter was measured by what it approved for some students and denied to others.
PK-12 districts should also check state law, which in many states addresses excused absences for religious observance directly. Employers should remember that employee requests are governed separately, by the religious accommodation obligations of Title VII.
The simplest version of the rule is the one in the settlement: the same basis as non-religious reasons. An attendance policy that cannot meet that standard should be rewritten before a student has to ask.