Alexander Smith

Alexander Smith is a devout African-American Christian and an ordained minister. Working as a first responder since 2004, he has dedicated his life to serving and protecting his community. Since 2015, Alex works as an Air Mask Technician for the Atlantic City Fire Department. He believes that his faith and conscience require him to wear a short beard, in accordance with Scripture and to set a godly example for his congregation. Fire department policy prohibits beards; the purported reason for this policy is to ensure that all service members can wear protective face masks as required by their role. But Alex’s job within the fire department is not to fight fires – it’s to fit masks and refill air tanks for his colleagues who are engaged in fire suppression. For this reason, Alex’s beard would not pose a safety hazard to anyone.

In 2019, Alex submitted a formal request to the fire department for a religious accommodation to wear a beard, accompanied by religious letters and Scriptural support for his sincerely held belief. But even with all this information, the City refused to grant his religious accommodation request. As a result, Alex had to shave every day to keep his position, even though he has never needed to wear a mask to perform his job as Air Mask Technician.

The lower court downplayed the important precedent set in Groff v. DeJoy and ignored the strong protections of the Free Exercise Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. It is illegal for the government to deny Alex’s religious accommodation request without a compelling justification. And while the city’s concerns were hypothetical, the harm to Alex from their refusal to respect his faith was very real. Along with the Harvard Religious Freedom Clinic, we appealed to the Third Circuit.

“No one should have to choose between their livelihood and practicing their faith, but that’s the choice that Atlantic City forced upon Alex,” said Kayla Toney, Counsel at First Liberty.

“Alex has dedicated his life to serving his community for 20 years, and he wants to help his colleagues be as safe as possible,” said Joshua McDaniel, Assistant Clinical Professor and Faculty Director at the Harvard Law School Religious Freedom Clinic. “The city should follow the law and respect his religious convictions.”

In the brief filed on April 3, 2024, Alex’s attorneys argued, “This appeal is an ideal opportunity for this Court to provide much-needed guidance after the Supreme Court’s decision last term in Groff. Mr. Smith deserves his day in court to ask the jury to hold ACFD accountable for failing to accommodate his sincere religious exercise. On the present record, ACFD hasn’t shown that allowing an administrative employee to grow a beard would result in substantial increased costs.”

In October 2024, Counsel Kayla Toney argued on behalf of Alex at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, pointing out, “The Department has refused to make any accommodation for our client’s religious beliefs, even though federal law and the Constitution require it.”

Then in May 2025, the Third Circuit ruled in favor of Alex’s right to wear a beard as an expression of his faith. He can now grow a beard in accordance with his faith while continuing to serve his community. In the opinion, the Court cited two First Liberty victories, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District and Groff v. DeJoy.

“We are very pleased with the Court’s unanimous decision to grant Alex a religious accommodation and respect his religious convictions,” said Kayla Toney. “Alex takes both his role as a first responder and his faith seriously. Now, he will not be wrongly forced to choose between the two.” 

Joshua McDaniel stated, “The Court’s ruling upholds religious freedom in the workplace and also creates important precedent protecting religious Americans so that they can live out their convictions without fear.”

In its decision upholding Alex’s free exercise claim, the Court held, “Religious liberty is our ‘first freedom.’ . . . [T]he City’s policy, the state regulation, and the federal regulation all necessarily yield to the Constitution. . . . To apply a standard less than strict scrutiny would falsely suggest that freedom of religion is a second-class right, subject to an entirely different and weaker body of rules than the other bill of rights guarantees.”

Then in June 2025, the City filed a petition for a rehearing en banc. The court denied this, however, later that same month.

In January 2026, First Liberty Institute, the Harvard Law School Religious Freedom Clinic, and Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP reached a favorable settlement on behalf of Alex with the City of Atlantic City, securing his right to wear a beard on duty as an expression of his faith. According to the Consent Decree, the City must update the Fire Department’s Operational Guidelines to follow Supreme Court precedent in Groff v. DeJoy, making religious accommodation to its grooming policy available. In analyzing accommodation requests, the City will have to “grant the accommodation unless it would pose a substantial increased cost to its operations.”

In addition to this significant policy change, the City will pay $400,000 to Alex and his attorneys and pay for him to receive his full salary and benefits while on authorized absence until his retirement. To protect religious freedom in the future, the City will implement a religious diversity training component for Atlantic City Fire Department leadership, which will include the EEOC Guidelines on Religious Discrimination, and will administer this training annually.