A research administrator at the University of Kentucky has become the first Humanist to secure a workplace accommodation that excuses him from personally using artificial intelligence, a milestone that extends religious-exemption protections to a nontheistic belief system for the first time in the AI era.
David Durman, who supports researchers applying for grants at the university, obtained the accommodation with the support of the American Humanist Association (AHA), a nonprofit that advances secular humanism. His case, first publicized in an AHA statement on October 26 and reported this week by TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Newsweek, and Tom's Hardware, is being closely watched because it treats resistance to AI use as a protected belief rather than a workplace preference. For more context on this story, see our ongoing latest AI developments.
How the Accommodation Came Together
According to the AHA's account, Durman sent a letter to the university's Office of Equal Opportunity in late August, requesting reasonable accommodation on the basis of his sincerely held beliefs as a Humanist. After meeting with the office in mid-September, his request was approved on September 25, when the office determined that excusing him from AI use posed no undue burden on his department.
Durman continues to perform all of his job duties without using AI. In his administrative role, he had not been required to use these tools, but colleagues and leadership had recommended that employees try them, so he sought the exemption preemptively, in case the suggestion ever became a mandate.
The Beliefs Behind the Request
In a statement published by the AHA, Durman was direct about why he objected. "As a Humanist, promoting the wellbeing and flourishing of humanity is paramount to how I live my life, and I believe that our capacity to think and reason for ourselves is worth protecting," he said. "When it comes to AI technology — particularly generative AI and LLMs, it's clear to me that the existence and use of these technologies run contrary to human wellbeing."
He went on to argue that AI is interfering with people's ability to earn a living, that its environmental costs "spell disaster for humanity and our planet," and that what he called its supplanting and theft of human creativity threatens art and literature. "I cannot, in good conscience, partake in the use and proliferation of this technology," he wrote.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Durman framed the issue in terms of moral agency. "The way we become moral actors for ourselves and for others is through the active application of our minds, and the diminishing of that [through AI use] is going to necessarily have a negative impact on our ability to do so," he said.
A Legal Path Cleared by Another Engineer
Durman has said he was inspired to act after reading about Erin Maus, a Unitarian Universalist software engineer who secured similar protections against being required to use AI in her own job. Maus's case was notable because it is now rare for software engineers to write code without AI assistance; Durman's is notable because his objection is prospective, securing protection before any requirement exists.
Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employers must reasonably accommodate an employee's sincerely held religious beliefs unless doing so imposes an undue hardship, and American courts have long treated nontheistic moral frameworks as qualifying beliefs. Alexandria Huiskens, staff attorney at the AHA, told TechCrunch that concern about AI and human dignity cuts across traditions. "Whether that's Catholic teachings, or Universalism, or Humanism, we want Humanists or nontheists to know that they fall into these categories — that they are also protected by the law at work," she said.
The University of Kentucky confirmed the accommodation in a statement to TechCrunch. Spokesperson Jay Blanton said the institution reviews such requests individually, considering job responsibilities and circumstances, and "in this case, the university determined that an accommodation could be provided while allowing the employee to continue performing the essential functions of their position." He added that as technology and job responsibilities evolve, accommodations may be reviewed to ensure they remain reasonable and workable.
What It Signals for Workplaces
The case lands amid a broader cultural debate about AI and conscience, one that reaches from Pope Leo XIV's warnings about AI's threat to human dignity to employee revolts inside technology companies themselves. It also arrives as many employers move in the opposite direction, encouraging or mandating AI adoption for productivity reasons.
Legal experts caution that a single accommodation does not establish a precedent, since each request turns on the employee's role, the employer's operations, and the specifics of the belief claimed. But as a first-of-its-kind outcome, Durman's case gives workers who object to AI on moral grounds a concrete template: document the belief, request the accommodation through formal channels, and anchor the request in a framework of sincerely held convictions.
Durman, for his part, told TechCrunch he hopes others with similar concerns pursue them, whether or not through a religious exemption. "I'm obviously not trying to tell people how to think or feel," he said. "But I do hope that it encourages people who have similar concerns to pursue their concerns to the best of their ability where they feel is the most appropriate." For now, he keeps doing his job the way he always has — thinking for himself, by choice and now by policy.
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