Appeals Court Rules Air Force Can’t Punish Members Seeking COVID-19 Jab Religious Exemptions

“A federal appeals court on Tuesday unanimously upheld an injunction prohibiting the U.S. Air Force from punishing or terminating service members with religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine,” The Defender reports.

Huge! A federal appeals court has unanimously upheld an injunction prohibiting the U.S. Air Force from punishing or terminating service members with religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine.https://t.co/m0NCOu8AWE

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) December 2, 2022

“The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Air Force had “wrongly relied on its ‘broadly formulated’ reasons” for denying the requests of over 10,000 unvaccinated Air Force members who submitted a religious exemption to the U.S. military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.”

“Pleased to announce the 6th Circuit just released its decision upholding our previous court wins concerning the Air Force’s denial of religious exemptions, including upholding a class-wide injunction protecting over 10K Air Force Members,” civil rights attorney Aaron Siri, legal counsel for the Informed Consent Action Network and one of the lawyers involved in the case, tweeted.

Pleased to announce the 6th Circuit just released its decision upholding our previous court wins concerning the Air Force’s denial of religious exemptions, including upholding a class-wide injunction protecting over 10K Air Force Members @ChrisWiest11 https://t.co/lCbqIr0Chr

— Aaron Siri (@AaronSiriSG) November 29, 2022

Siri stated:

On November 29, 2022, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the class-certification and class-wide national injunction protecting over 10,000 Air Force Members from being punished and separated because of their religious convictions against taking the currently available COVID-19 vaccines.

The Court held that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, “the Air Force wrongly relied on its ‘broadly formulated’ reasons for the vaccine mandate to deny specific exemptions to the Plaintiffs, especially since it has granted secular exemptions to their colleagues.”  And the Court held that “[t]he Plaintiffs have offered ‘[s]ignificant proof’—indeed, the evidence is undisputed—that the Air Force has a ‘uniform’ practice of denying religious exemptions to anyone who wants to remain in the service.”

The Defender added:

An Air Force spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “The Department of the Air Force is complying with a court order to pause all disciplinary and adverse actions for members refusing the COVID-19 vaccine who submitted a timely religious accommodation request and fall within the definition of the court’s certified class.”

Tuesday’s ruling is part of an ongoing class action lawsuit aimed at granting relief to the more than 10,000 unvaccinated active duty, reserve and Air National Guard, Air Force and Space Force members who submitted a religious exemption to the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and were denied or are awaiting a decision.

The original case — filed Feb. 16, 2022 — represented 18 active and reservist members who sued Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall when they were denied religious exemptions to the mandate and sought legal relief for violations of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

On March 31, U.S. District Judge Matthew McFarland granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and ruled that the meager number of religious exemptions granted by the Air Force — 21 of 4,403 requests as of March 22 — and the verifiable threats of punishment to service members who expressed their religious beliefs warranted relief.

In April, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case, but on July 14, Judge McFarland denied the motion and certified the case as a national class action lawsuit, barring enforcement of the vaccine mandate for service members seeking religious exemption.