The University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine agreed to pay $10.3 million to settle a First Amendment lawsuit brought by 18 former employees who lost their jobs for refusing to take a required COVID-19 vaccine.
The plaintiffs had religious objections to the vaccine, but the university determined their objections weren’t legitimate and fired them, according to the Thomas More Society, which represented the former CU employees and announced the settlement Monday.
CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora considered whether employees’ religions had an established doctrine prohibiting them from receiving any vaccines; if not, the school asked whether the employee had received other shots, and what made this one different.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in May 2024 that CU’s process was an unconstitutional religious test by a government entity.
The university could have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose current justices have generally favored plaintiffs alleging religious discrimination.
When the vaccines first became available in December 2020, they were more than 90% effective in preventing infection, meaning they could stop further transmission of the virus to health care workers’ patients or colleagues. Since then, COVID-19 variants have become increasingly good at evading the immune system, so that vaccination primarily benefits individuals by reducing the risk of severe illness.
Michael McHale, senior counsel for the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, said nothing could compensate the plaintiffs for career damage from having to choose whether to go against their convictions.
“At great, and sometimes career-ending, costs, our heroic clients fought for the First Amendment freedoms of all Americans who were put to the unconscionable choice of their livelihoods or their faith during what (Supreme Court) Justice (Neil) Gorsuch has rightly declared one of ‘the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country,’” McHale said in a statement. “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.”
Julia Milzer, a spokeswoman for CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus, said federal agencies required health care facilities to have a vaccine mandate at the time. The policy is no longer in force, but was right during that stage of the pandemic, she said.
A separate state mandate required health care workers to get the shot or receive a medical or religious exemption is also no longer in place.
“While some chose to challenge the policy, the evidence remains clear: Vaccination was essential to protecting the vulnerable, keeping hospitals open and sustaining education and research,” she said in a statement. “We stand by the decisions made in that moment and remain deeply grateful to the health care professionals, faculty, staff and students whose courage and commitment protected our community and advanced our mission when it mattered most.”
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get health news sent straight to your inbox.