Following years of fighting, Americans who were fired or forced out of a job due to religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine are finally receiving justice under the Trump administration.
As Americans will well remember, at the height of the Biden-era COVID craze in 2021, many employers implemented vaccine requirements, forcing workers to either take the vaccine or lose their job. While many Americans had legitimate concerns about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, others also objected on moral and religious grounds – legally protected concerns that were in many cases totally dismissed and ignored.
Specifically, many Christians were ethically conflicted over the shot because it was tested on aborted fetal cell lines. They argued that the vaccine’s connection to abortion violated their deeply held religious beliefs about the sanctity of human life.
Some Christians also objected to putting what they saw as unnecessary interventions into their body, arguing that doing so violated the biblical teaching that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Much of the pressure to coerce employees into taking the COVID vaccine came from the Biden administration. For example, the Biden Occupational Safety and Health Administration demanded all employers with 100 or more employees require their workers to get vaccinated. The Supreme Court blocked this outrageous mandate in a January 2022 ruling, but the Court upheld another Biden rule requiring all health facilities that received Medicare and Medicaid funding (meaning most clinics and hospitals) to vaccinate their employees.
Biden also publicly shamed those who made the informed decision to decline the COVID shot, warning of a “winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated.”
The pressure campaign wrought devastating harm on families throughout the country as workers already struggling under inflation, food shortages, and a tough job market were forced to choose between their religious beliefs and putting food on the table.
In New York alone, around 34,000 healthcare workers lost their jobs for declining to take the vaccine. An October 2021 survey found that an astonishing five percent of workers nationwide had quit their jobs over vaccine mandates, but that was before the Biden administration had formalized its own edict, so the number likely ended up being even higher. Thousands of patriotic service members were also discharged from the military for declining the vaccine.
In response, approximately 10,000 workers fought back, bringing complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal government agency charged with enforcing laws prohibiting workplace discrimination and harassment. With Trump back in office following promises on the campaign trail in 2024 to get justice for these workers, they are now winning major settlements and admissions of wrongdoing from employers.
In May, for instance, the EEOC announced a $4.25 million settlement with AG Equipment in Oklahoma. “When these workers asked for a simple religious accommodation, the company didn’t pause to listen or even consider the impact,” an EEOC attorney said in a statement.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas reminded employers that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, they must provide reasonable accommodations to the religious beliefs of workers. Lucas reprimanded employers for thinking COVID concerns overrode fundamental religious freedom rights: “The pandemic did not exempt employers from their legal obligations under Title VII.”
This settlement follows a March agreement with an unnamed tech company that agreed to pay $15 million to settle religious and disability discrimination complaints concerning the COVID shot. EEOC announced that it “found reasonable cause to believe that the company discriminated… on the basis of religion and disability.”
There could well be more major settlements on the way. In early May, the EEOC announced that it “has filed 4 lawsuits alleging religious discrimination and accommodation claims related to COVID vaccine mandates,” along with securing $19 million in settlements. That number does not include the $4 million settlement with the Oklahoma company.
The EEOC has also taken steps to shed light on the government’s infringement on the religious liberty of federal employees.
On May 18, the EEOC announced that the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education had violated the religious liberty rights of employees when it “summarily denied requests for religious accommodations to be exempt from the federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate.”
The decision also detailed disturbing evidence that federal workers were berated for simply requesting that their religious beliefs be respected.
For instance, a panel demanded that employees list all vaccines they received and what medications they take and if any conflict with their religious beliefs. The EEOC, in its review of the Star Chamber-like questioning, said the employees “were summoned to an inquisitorial panel to be quizzed and lectured on their medical history and knowledge of other medicines derived from human fetal cells.”
The EEOC decision criticized the “crucible of invasive gotcha-style questioning” and said it “was a thinly veiled, and discriminatory, attempt to expose supposed hypocrisy and convince Complainants to recant their objections.”
Shockingly, even though the hostile panel confirmed that the workers did have sincere reasons to oppose taking the COVID vaccine, they still demanded all workers take it or lose their job. While thankfully they never followed through with the firings due to a subsequent federal judicial injunction, the threat alone showed a shocking disregard for the workers’ First Amendment liberties.
Unfortunately, untold thousands of employees will never receive full justice. Under pressure and fear of job loss, many Americans took the vaccine against their own conscience so they could keep feeding their families. But moving forward, workers can point to a clear history of EEOC judgements that affirm they cannot be forced to take a vaccine if it violates their religious beliefs.
President Trump and the EEOC cannot fix all the injustices of the COVID vaccine mandate era. But at least for some workers – and for future generations of workers who now have their precedent to fall back on – Trump’s return to the White House has meant vindication and compensation.
Matt Lamb is an AMAC Newsline contributor and associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
