EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION
Imagine a scenario where a Fortune 500 company decided to require all employees to get the flu shot, except those who had a religious reason not to.
Most first-year law students would know that federal employment law generally requires equal treatment and that employers generally cannot unduly burden a specific person’s religious beliefs. An employer cannot let a Catholic off from work on Sunday while not granting the same exception to an Orthodox Jew who needs to leave work early on Fridays so as to avoid using a car during Sabbath. Really just basic, entry level First Amendment law here.
So, for those who wanted a religious exemption, the easiest and most legal way, would probably be to just grant one to anyone who requested it. Or perhaps the employer would require a basic letter from the person’s pastor, minister, or church elder affirming they have a religious objection.
What you definitely would not want to do, is create a blanket policy saying that no Catholics, Buddhists, or Orthodox Christians could get a religious exemption. That would be dumb, illegal, and costly.
The University of Colorado’s medical school just learned that.
The Anschutz School of Medicine, located in Aurora, will “pay more than $10.3 million in damages, tuition, and attorney’s fees to 18 plaintiffs who were denied religious accommodations to mandatory COVID-19 vaccination,” Thomas More Society announced on Monday. “The settlement ends nearly a half-decade of litigation in federal and state court and represents a historic victory for religious freedom nationwide.”
The settlement follows a 2024 ruling against the school which found it acted out of animus toward Catholics, Buddhists, and Orthodox Christians who requested exemptions from vaccine mandates.
For example, the medical school determined than any Catholics who objected to the COVID shot on religious grounds were acting on their “personal” not “religious” beliefs. Many Catholics, and other Christians, have moral problems with the vaccines because they were developed by testing on aborted fetal cell lines.
To remedy the situation further, the university will also “refrain from future inquisitions into the supposed legitimacy of students’ and employees’ religious beliefs, after initially denying all requests for religious exemption to COVID-19 vaccination on that pretense,” Thomas More Society announced.
“We are confident our clients’ long-overdue victory indeed confirms, despite the tyrannical efforts of many, that our shared constitutional right to religious liberty endures,” attorney Michael McHale stated in a news release sent to The College Fix.
The ruling, and settlement, is a direct rebuke of Chancellor Donald Elliman, who was ultimately responsible for the policy.
It also highlights the irony of a university that pledges support for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” but is utterly ignorant of basic religious freedom law.
I have a suggestion – CU Boulder has a thriving Catholic campus ministry and a reputable law school.
Elliman, and the other medical school staffers who implemented this costly and illegal policy, might consider taking some time to learn from each of these about both religious beliefs and the First Amendment.
The lawsuit is a victory for religious freedom, but a sad reflection on the higher education, which preaches support for “diversity” and “inclusion” as long as those values line up with what administrators and professors already believe.
