re: Religious Discrimination- Vaccine Related

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Not sure EEOC could help you - I assume you are not a protected class.

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Religion is protected by the EEOC. And as he said, he's working from home so the company would have a hard time proving that they could not provide an accommodation due to an operational burden.

Find an attorney that is confident in the case and willing to take payment from a settlement. It sounds like this company has done a few illegal things and wants OP to thank them for a severance.

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They didn't make a decision on your religious exemption request? I'd talk to a lawyer, 90% chance you have a great shot at a lawsuit.

Your employer is supposed to default to the position that you're being genuine. The fact that they didn't even follow up on your request seems illegal.

EDIT: If you want to, I highlighted my wife's religious exemption request where I lay out the law. Click my profile and search the threads I've started and you should be able to find it. But according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, your employee should assume you're religious beliefs are genuine unless you've given them a reason to doubt your honesty. In short, you're truthful until proven a liar. The fact that they didn't ask any follow-up seems like they're breaking the law. I'd talk to a lawyer.

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The only issue is they can still deny it even if it's genuine. The law does not say they have to grant an exemption/accommodation if it would cause an undue hardship on the business.

However, the fact that they seemingly never considered it is likely grounds for a lawsuit unless they can prove OP was terminated for another reason. If they were dumb enough to document vaccination status as a reason for termination with no resolution to the RA request, then they deserve to lose in court.

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I did request a reasonable accommodation, and offered to submit to weekly testing.

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If everything you've posted is true, I don't see how any attorney could believe you don't have a case. I mean, this is what you've said so far:

1) Filed for Religious Accomdation/Exemption
2) Company asked some questions (likely illegal questions, but let's ignore that for a second)
3) You offered accommodation options, including continued work from home and weekly testing
4) Employer terminates you for failure to abide by vaccination policy, with no apparent answer to accommodation/exemption request

If all of that is true, I don't see where anyone could reasonably say you don't have a case, unless they stated specifically what part of the vaccine policy you violated, and how an accomdation/exemption could not be granted for that reason.

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What religion are you?


Irrelevant.

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How could it not? I'm Methodist and I am unaware of anything in The Book of Discipline that would discourage me from being vaccinated. I have had pretty much every vaccine available except for Shingles. How could you have a religious reason to not take this particular vaccine when you had to have a number of vaccines to go to school (public anyway, not sure about private)?

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So you're comparing a decision made by a consenting adult to a child immunization requirement where said child doesn't even have the ability to choose whether or not to take a vaccine?

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I assume he is an adult and I had to take Hep A, Hep B and tetanus to go on a mission trip to Honduras. I have also had the Pneumonia, and Flu, all as an adult.

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Religious Accomodations/Exemptions are not based on what a particular religion teaches. It's the personal beliefs of the individual that are relevant. Just because the leaders of an organized religion say something is OK, doesn't mean the individual agrees. The Catholic Church says it's OK because it's for the benefit of society. Someone could disagree with that, or feel more strongly about the aborted fetal cells issue.

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It was not an adversarial question. I appreciate the explanation but not too thrilled about the tone.

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we are working from home

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They're trying to mandate what you do at home? Nah I don't see how that flies.

Sue the frack out of them

Seek millions in punitive damages

I have received nothing in writing. No cause of termination. And when I spoke with HR again today, they are trying to flip the script. Saying my performance was lacking because I am not vaccinated. And they knew this would only be exacerbated in the future as I have a public facing position. So, at that point, you are almost trying to fight them saying you were poorly performing. Even though, I never received an unsatisfactory performance review or was given any warning or indication from my supervisor about failing work. If anything, she had just made me the lead on 3 new projects.

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Where was this mentioned?

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I said:

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. I have had pretty much every vaccine available except for Shingles.

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