EEOC Sues Company for Denying Religious Exemptions to Vaccine Mandate for Remote Workers

From the EEOC's press release yesterday (and you can also read the Complaint, in EEOC v. United Healthcare Services, Inc.):

United Healthcare Services, Inc. (United) violated federal law when it discriminated against a full-time telecommuter by refusing to grant her a religious exemption from the company's COVID-19 vaccine requirement, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it announced today.

According to EEOC's lawsuit, a supervisor of clinical administration had performed her job entirely from home since 2018 and had no job duties that required her to meet face-to-face or to enter the healthcare provider's facilities. When the company implemented a COVID-19 vaccination policy that required employees to be vaccinated in Oct. 2021, she received notifications directing her to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, even though the company's vaccine policy stated it did not apply to full-time telecommuters. She informed her supervisor and human capital partner of her religious objections to vaccination and filed two requests for religious accommodation in which she sought exemption from the vaccination requirement, but the company denied her requests without any discussion with her and demanded she get a COVID-19 vaccine within 30 days or be fired, the EEOC said. When she did not get the vaccine within that time, she was fired.

Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination because of an individual's religion and requires employers to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious observance or practice unless doing so would cause an undue hardship…. The EEOC is seeking permanent injunctive relief prohibiting United from discriminating against employees because of religion in the future, lost wages, compensatory and punitive damages, and other relief.

"Once an employer is on notice that an employee's sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance prevents the employee from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, the employer must provide a reasonable accommodation unless it would pose an undue hardship," said Debra Lawrence, regional attorney for the EEOC's Philadelphia District Office. "Neither healthcare providers nor COVID-19 vaccination requirements are excepted from Title VII's protections against religious discrimination."

Thanks to Prof. Howard Friedman (Religion Clause) for the pointer.

Comments

[Joe_dallas]

Who is going to defend the EEOC suit after they demanded that every body needed to be fully vaxed and boosted with no exceptions for anyone including no exception for religious objection.

[Lee Moore]

Is this not perhaps one of those "friendly" suits wherein the plaintiff wishes to spare the defendant from a suit by a more ferocious plaintiff, who might go for a judgement that might produce an undesirable precedent ? The sort that gets settled early for a dime ?

[Tom for equal rights]

Lee - My point was that a large portion of leftist demanded that everyone get vaxed regardless of the dubious nature of the effectiveness for the majority of the population.

Note that I agree that being vaxed had definite level of benefits for the elderly and individuals with health issues (comprising approx 20-25% of the population). The rest of the population obtained very little if any benefit from being vaxed.

[Nige]

Are you also Joe_dallas?

[Magister]

There are cases where a requirement really only impinges on the individual subject to it; requiring motorcycle helmets, for example. (It would be a cynical policy to require motorcyclists to be organ donors before they can go without a helmet, in order to increase the supply of organs.)

A requirement that affects public health may be visited upon people who are not the primary beneficiaries, but who may benefit indirectly: keeping hospitals from being jammed up would benefit people who need hospital care for something other than COVID.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If you figure that point will register among the antisocial, on-the-spectrum, right-wing misfits who constitute this blog’s target audience, you are disregarding years of vivid experience.

[Nige]

‘they demanded that every body needed to be fully vaxed and boosted with no exceptions’

Who demanded that? One important reason for the bulk of the population to get vaxxed was to help protect people who couldn't get vaxxed for medical reasons.

[Rossami]

Your attempts to rewrite history are distressing not so much because you are trying to do it but because you do it so very badly.

To your specific question, lots of people blindly called for a "no exceptions" policy. The company getting sued is one of them - that's in fact the very basis of the suit.

[Magister]

There were always medical exceptions. But people with compromised immune systems may have gotten vaccinated with it not doing much for them, so the objective would still be valid even if there were no exceptions at all.

[Tom for equal rights]

Rossami - Nige is just ahead of the curve , being one of the first to re-write history.

[Nige]

Can you direct me please to anyone of significance who demanded that people who can't get vaccinated get vaccinated, Joe?

[Nige]

You can’t force people who can’t get vaccinated to get vaccinated, and nobody tried. Ignorant people keep forgetting they exist and covid-truthers and anti-vaxxers just don’t care if they die, but nobody in charge ever tried to disallow them their exceptional status.

The company here is in the wrong, but there's no indication they tried to force anyone who can't get vaccinated to get the vaccine. Religious exemptions are pretty dumb and not medical.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Civil rights are "pretty dumb." There's nothing more left to say.

[SMP0328]

Seems this case is a direct result of Groff v. De Joy, Post Master General, No. 22-174 (June 29, 2023). Before Groff, United Healthcare Services would simply have claimed the requested accommodation would result in more than a trivial burden on it and likely won. Now it must prove the accommodation would cause it to suffer a substantial burden and will likely lose.

[Bored Lawyer]

The worker works remotely from home. What burden does the employer suffer?

[SMP0328]

You're right, but employers usually won under the pre-Groff standard. In this case, United would claim that it would have to monitor the supervisor to make sure she never came to the office while unvaccinated. That would be a trivial burden, but likely would be enough to give it the win. Now that small burden won't cut it.

[SimonP]

The religious belief in question:

As a result and extension of her sincerely held religious beliefs described above, Stone is unable, in good conscience, to receive certain vaccines, including but not limited to COVID-19 vaccines, that were developed or tested using cell lines derived from aborted fetuses.

Magical woo-woo wins again!

[Bored Lawyer]

Yes, letting a remote worker who never comes into the office refrain from being vaccinated will result in the reinstatement of the Inquisition. Make Torquemada Great Again.
Question is, why do you have so much contempt for religion?

[Lee Moore]

Lots of people do. Many – but not all – lefties hate religious folk far more enthusiastically than racists and homophobes hate their particular targets.

Loathing of religion, of priests, churches and churchgoers has been a mainstay of most leftist revolutionaries in the Christian world, and likewise in the East.

Religion represents an alternative value system. And lefties trend hegemonic.

[SimonP]

Religious beliefs are like political beliefs, insofar as they are chosen and adhered to, and not "born into" apart from culturally speaking. As such, putatively "religious" people are morally accountable for what they believe and do, based on those beliefs. In contrast, for example, Black people are not morally accountable for being born Black.

Trying to characterize "lefties" as "anti-religious bigots" is a classic move, designed to shut down debate and close examination. But as a rule, if you want to force 14-year-old girls to carry pregnancies to term and deadname LGBT teens while outing them to parents who might respond by kicking them out of the house, you're an asshole, and it doesn't matter if you tell me that Jesus told you to do that. Nor am I obliged in any way to take you seriously when you say that Jesus told you to do that, when it is plain that he didn't.

[Lee Moore]

Tip for new players - you don't have to be religious to object to abortion, or some categories thereof, or to think that "man" and "woman" describe biological categories.

"Trying to characterize “lefties” as “anti-religious bigots” is a classic move, designed to shut down debate and close examination."

Nah, it's a classic move designed to point out that many lefties are anti-religious bigots.

[Tom for equal rights]

Lee - I am one that is not only not religious and have serious doubts about even the remote possibility of a "god"
I am also very opposed to abortion because I believe in the sanctity of life. Whats the difference between taking an innocent persons life at 8 months post conception versus 9.5 months post conception. In both cases you have taken an innocent life.

[KenveeB]

Same for me, Tom. I've never understood the claim that you have to be religious to oppose abortion.

[SimonP]

(Taking the allegations as true) I don’t think the employer had any good reason to require a full-time WFH employee to get vaccinated against their will, whatever the reason for their refusal.

As for religion – I don’t have contempt for religion. I have contempt for people who wrongly characterize themselves as “religious.”

Theology and religious philosophy is an intellectual interest of mine. (Not a primary area of focus, in my recreational reading time, but I manage to get back to it from time to time.) While I don’t subscribe to the core tenets that underlie much of this work, and in broad strokes I think they force rigorous scholars into bizarre logical pretzels that I think are kind of silly, I fundamentally respect people who sincerely believe in a higher power and conscientiously seek to abide by whatever moral law that power is taken to have laid down.

I have less respect for people who try to take advantage of the broad protections provided to them by our Constitution and laws in order to support positions reached for other, less supported or examined reasons, under the broad rubric of being rooted in a “sincere religious belief.”

The Catholic Church, for instance, considered the question at play in the OP in some detail. The Church shares with the plaintiff reservations about using vaccines that were developed in reliance on the use of cell lines derived from aborted fetuses, whether for research, testing, or production. So, during COVID, they looked closely into how each of the different vaccines were researched/tested/produced, and evaluated the moral harm caused by using a vaccine that was developed with fetal cell lines against other pertinent moral considerations, such as the importance of saving lives and public health against COVID. The conclusion they reached was balanced and, I think, eminently reasonable (having taken for granted the underlying belief that reliance on fetal cell lines is a religious problem). Basically: when there’s no alternative, it’s okay to use these vaccines; and when there are choices between vaccines that are more or less reliant on fetal cell lines, it’s better to choose the ones that were less reliant.

That’s all I ask: if we, as a society, are going to categorically protect religious belief and practice, let that be limited to religious beliefs that are rooted in empirical reality and sound religious reasoning. You shouldn’t be able to say, “I sincerely believe that these vaccines have fetal cells in them, and my body is a temple, so I can’t have that in my body,” be corrected by your lawyer so that your factual assertion is at least something that can be proven in court, and have that fly.

And let’s not get into all the nonsense about having “religious sincere beliefs” about not using a student’s preferred name/pronouns and “outing” trans students to parents they’re afraid won’t react well to the news. That’s just a political position under the guise of a putative religious belief, and obviously so. Again, a sincerely religious teacher who believed that God made people at birth exactly as he intended them always to be (itself not really supported by any canonical text) would weigh that belief against others – about exercising compassion for others, about grace, about their role as a mentor and protector for the children they’re teaching, etc. – and would act in a way that doesn’t center them. Or see, e.g., the coach who Jesus instructed to pray at the 50-yard line.

I don’t have any contempt for religion, per se. I have contempt for the clowns throwing tantrums, and receiving legal protection for their stupid antics that someone like myself – with sincere ethical and moral beliefs and practices, not rooted in any specific religious tradition – would have a much harder time getting legal accommodation for.

[Suudy]

I think you misunderstand. Opposition isn't about whether there are fetal cells in the vaccine, but passive (and remote) material cooperation with evil.

And Pope Francis made this clear in his "Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccine," as well as the CDF's Dignitas Personae. The moral obligation to avoid passive material cooperation is not obligatory unless there is grave danger. Considering this plaintiff, it seems reasonable to me that there is no grave danger. But her conscience is responsible for balancing the moral duty and the evaluation of grave danger.

Further, the Pope made clear that vaccines must be mandatory. From the first reference, "[P]ractical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary." This must be balanced view a view to the common good, but again, individual conscience is the driver here.

[Lee Moore]

Unless I have misunderstood you, I think you have suffered from a misplaced “not.” I think the “not” in the second sentence of your second paragraph should not be there, and should instead appear after “must” in the first sentence of your third paragraph.
ie s/b “obligatory” and “ must not be mandatory”

[Suudy]

Yes, I was paraphrasing the document, and poorly chose the word “unless”. Should have used “if.” Unfortunately, it’s too late to update. It should say:

The moral obligation to avoid passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is grave danger.

And a big fat typo in the last sentence. The first "view" should be "with." Thus:

This must be balanced with a view to the common good, but again, individual conscience is the driver here.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The Pope does not interpret the Bible for me -- **I** interpret the Bible for me!!!

ANTI-PROTESTANT BIGOTRY NEEDS TO END!!!!

[Lee Moore]

Baby legal question.

In situations like this where does the government agency acquire its standing ? The alleged harm is visited on an individual not on the agency.

Is it some sort of criminal case where the agency hopes to net a fine ? In which case why is it up to the agency to sue, rather than up to the DA to prosecute ?

[ReaderY]

The same basis as the government’s standing to prosecute crimes. Crime victims are usually individuals. But crimes are nonetheless offenses against the sovereign. Sovereigns always have standing to enforce their laws because they are always injured, offended, when their laws are violated.

The fact that Congress provided for civil enforcement by the EEOC rather than criminal enforcement by the Justice Department doesn’t change the basis for standing. The choice of agency and enforcement method doesn’t matter. The Federal Government always has standing to enforce federal law.

[David Nieporent]

Hopefully the company will defend by pointing out that there are no religious objections to vaccines and the worker is perjuring herself.

[David Nieporent]

To be clear, that would not be my advice to the company if I were their lawyer; it's almost impossible for them to win that way. It's my hope as a citizen.

That's not to say that I think the company should force her to be vaccinated if she's 100% a remote worker; I just don't like people lying. (Also, as a libertarian, I don't think the government should be telling employers who they can hire and fire anyway.)

[David Nieporent]

Somehow posted twice? Didn't even know that was possible.

[SMP0328]

That’s not to say that I think the company should force her to be vaccinated if she’s 100% a remote worker

I don't think any company or government should force a person to get any COVID vaccination.

I just don’t like people lying.

Why do you think she is lying?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Why do you think she is lying?

Because he’s capable of applying a modest amount of critical thinking and common sense to her claim?

[SMP0328]

She doesn't want to get vaccinated for COVID but also didn't want to lose her job. Title VII's religious exemption seemed to her to be the best way to achieve that goal. It might not work and you may not agree with her strategy or goal, but was engaging in critical thinking and using common sense.

[Magister]

Making religious exemptions easier than other exemptions promotes religion and especially insincere religious belief.

The entire comment would apply to her coworker who has no religious beliefs but does not want to get vaccinated.

[David Nieporent]

Why do you think she is lying?

Because no religion — not even Christian Scientists — has a doctrine against vaccination. It's a (nutty) political objection that is being mislabeled as a religious one.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

As right-wingers continue to get routed in the culture war, they become increasingly desperate and reach for anything that might buy some time and enable them antagonize to the mainstream. An excuse based on absolute fucking nonsense is a perfect fit for these ignorant, disaffected losers.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Seig Heil!

You'd have made a good Nazi -- they also purported to be Christians.

[David Nieporent]

I, of course, purport to be Jewish, which Nazis did not typically do.

[Suudy]

But the opposition isn't to vaccination per se, but how the vaccines are developed and produced. The complaint itself makes this clear:

"As a result and extension of her sincerely held religious beliefs described above, Stone is unable, in good conscience, to receive certain vaccines, including but not limited to COVID-19 vaccines, that were developed or tested using cell lines derived from aborted fetuses."

[Bored Lawyer]

That's not her objection. Her objection is that this particular vaccination was developed using fetal cells for aborted babies. A view which some very mainstream religions hold.

And even on your misinformed assertion, you are wrong. I believe that some Jehovah's Witnesses do object to vaccinations.

[ReaderY]

As I’ve posted before, I think that in general people need to provide evidence the underlying belief existed proior to the context and wasn’t invented ad hoc, so the plaintiff’s bare statement in support of the lawsuit would need to be corroborated by evidence this belief previously existed and wasn’t invented ad hoc. While this will tend to favor members of organized religions, which tend to create records documenting their beliefs, I think the general requirent to produce evidence to support claims doesn’t work differently here.

That said, there is always a large gray area between sufficient evidence to support a claim and perjury. Not everyone who loses a lawsuit is a criminal. I would require affirmative evidence beyond the claimant’s bare contemporaneous word. But absent unusual circumstances, I would treat people in who lose religion claims like anyone else who loses a lawsuit and not equate insufficient evidence of sincerity with perjury.

I also wouldn’t enforce it too exactly. For example, a general pre-existing opposition to war potentially supports line-drawing at different points, so plaintiffs who can show this don’t have to produce evidence of the precise line they drew.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"I think that in general people need to provide evidence the underlying belief existed proior to the context and wasn’t invented ad hoc,"

Okay, but let's posit an example:

1. religious exemption to vaccines developed using fetal cell cultures.
2. A new vaccine is the first vaccine developed using fetal cell cultures.

You have a religious exemption to a new circumstance where the circumstance you object to did not exist before.

So how do you go about proving the belief existed prior?

[ReaderY]

But it’s hardly the first.

Did they or their children get another vaccine developed this way, let’s say, an MMR? And are they willing to take one of the COVID vaccines not developed this way? The J&J one in particular was. What about the others?

These issues are all relevant.

If they don’t want to take the J&J one for these reasons but are Ok with one of the others, I don’t see why anyone should have a problem with that.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You are a Jew who keeps Kosher.

Someone bribes a Rabbi and non-Kosher food is sold as Kosher.

You eat it.

You are no longer able to claim to be Kosher? Did you KNOW that food wasn't Kosher?

[ReaderY]

I don’t understand how this relates to my comment. A person who has no prior objection to vaccines but suddenly decides to object to COVID vaccines is in a very different position from a Jew who normally keeps kosher having a single inadvertent incident.

Indeed, the hypothetical shows the person bothered to look for food certified as kosher. This corroberates sincerity. The fact the rabbi was secretly corrupt doesn’t change that.

I’m not saying a LOT of corroborating evidence would be necessary. In general, Jew who keeps kosher ought to be easily able to corroborate this. Grocery receipts, testimony from acquaintances, lots of things. Simply being a member of a synogogue might be enough to establish a prior inclination to standard Jewish practices.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Relax, folks. I don't think this "endless, unquestioned, snowflakey privilege for superstition" period in America is going to last much longer.

[Suudy]

"I don’t understand how this relates to my comment. A person who has no prior objection to vaccines but suddenly decides to object to COVID vaccines ...."

That's missing the point here. It isn't vaccines per se, but how they are developed and manufactured.

[Suudy]

"Did they or their children get another vaccine developed this way, let’s say, an MMR? And are they willing to take one of the COVID vaccines not developed this way? The J&J one in particular was. What about the others?"

First, as Pope Francis' statement on Covid-19 vaccines, the obligation to avoid passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is grave danger. If there are no alternatives, one *may* choose to use these vaccines. I know alternatives for many of these vaccines are not available, and as a parent one has to balance one's cooperation with evil (no matter how remote or passive) and the grave danger of refusing the vaccine.

Second, it is possible that one either lacked knowledge or had a conversion since the children were vaccinated. Consenting to an MMR, Polio, TDap, etc, and later learning of their development/production does not mean the belief was insincere. It only shows ignorance. And what if the parent/children were not Christian prior, and had a conversion?

Past acts alone are not indicators of insincerity of belief.

Finally, with respect to all the Covid vaccines, all the ones approved for use in the US were developed and/or produced using fetal lines from aborted children. The Charlotte Lozier Institute has a great chart on which vaccines and their stages of development and their use of abortive cell lines. The J&J uses these lines throughout development and production. Moderna and Phizer use these cells during testing. There are no other approved vaccines available in the US.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"As I’ve posted before, I think that in general people need to provide evidence the underlying belief existed proior to the context and wasn’t invented ad hoc...."

I've never presented evidence of my underlying belief that murdering innocent 3-year-olds is wrong because I've never needed to and always thought that my religious values in this regard were widely enough shared enough not to need articulation.

Likewise, I always thought society executed Dr. Mengle for a reason and that the macabre & ghoulish stuff he was doing was so widely enough condemned for me not to need to say that I need to have a religious objection to it.

[Magister]

Josef Mengele was not executed.

[David Nieporent]

By the way, this is the Biden administration opposing a vaccine mandate, but I do not expect any of the anti-Biden/anti-vaccine people to give him any credit for that.

[Dr. Ed 2]

More trying to re-write history.
Kinda like Dow Chemical after Napalm....