A Colorado university’s medical school has been ordered to pay a $10.3 million settlement to staff and students who said they were forced to take the COVID-19 vaccine despite requesting religious exemptions.
The University of Colorado (CU) Anschutz, located in Aurora, was sued in 2021 by 18 anonymous plaintiffs, including physicians, medical students, nurses, researchers and administrative staff, who argued the school’s mandate violated their First Amendment rights.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately ruled that Chancellor Donald Elliman and other university officials acted with ‘religious animus’ when they rejected all requests for religious exemptions.
Under the settlement, the university must now allow students to request religious accommodations on equal terms as employees, and grant religious exemption requests the same consideration as medical exemptions, a reversal of its policy during the pandemic.
The school also agreed to stop questioning or investigating the supposed legitimacy of students’ and employees’ religious beliefs, a process the lawsuit claimed was used to automatically deny every exemption request.
University must pay $10m for forcing people to have Covid vaccine
American Buddhist Net 