A Colorado university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal court has ruled.
The Sept. 1, 2021, mandate “clearly violates the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause as interpreted by our precedents,” a majority of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit said in the May 7 decision.
While the mandate was later updated, the newer version also violates the Constitution, the judges said.
The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in 2021 required COVID-19 vaccination of all students and employees. It initially offered religious exemptions to anyone who checked a box, but later said administrators would “only recognize religious exemptions based on religious beliefs whose teachings are opposed to all immunizations.”
Officials, for instance, said that Christian Scientists would qualify for an exemption but Buddhists would not.
They also said that exemptions would only be granted to people who never received any vaccinations.
Medical exemptions, on the other hand, were available if a doctor said the prospective recipient’s health or life would be endangered.
Seventeen students and employees, all of whose applications were denied, sued over the policy, alleging it was discriminatory.
U.S. District Judge Raymond Moore, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, in 2022 ruled that the plaintiffs did not show they would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay of the initial mandate, and that they had not met the burden of showing the updated mandate was not neutral.
The case against the Sept. 1 mandate also became moot because the requirements were updated, the judge said.
That ruling was wrong, according to the appeals court, in part because the initial mandate was used to fire two employee plaintiffs and Judge Moore placed the burden regarding mootness on the plaintiffs.
Under the Sept. 1 policy, Anschutz administrators “rejected applicants’ beliefs based not on their sincerity, but rather on their perceived validity,” according to the new ruling. Even after receiving numerous pages of explanations of religious beliefs, each application was denied. Administrators rejected one application because officials claimed that it was “morally acceptable” for Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines, judging any position otherwise as personal objections as opposed to religious ones.
The policy was “explicitly non-neutral” since, according to a ruling in a separate case, the First Amendment does not allow governments to “discriminate in favor of some religions and against others,” the majority said.
Any red blooded American knows the covid vaccination is unconstitutional
Religious exemptions from otherwise applicable law violate the Constitution.
Sombody sue Salisbury University- they made people get the shot or spend extra time and effort getting tested every week. Then they DEMANDED that anyone who had the shot get a booster.
Of course it does! And I tried to tell you morons that it did, but again you all want to be a slave to the system so you go along to get along. Not realizing even being complicit makes you at fault and what is funny is how you get on here and run your mouth about how you don’t like something you are helping push through, or by not doing anything to stop it or slow it or change it, waiting for it to be your new normal, from which you will never go back to how it was or used to be. As you all should know, once the door is open, you can’t close it. And you all should know how hard it is to change something once it is implemented. But again you will all see soon enough, what they are planning and so you won’t have any freedom. But you all think it can’t affect you or that if you go along to get along, they will leave you alone. But everything they do affects you. Just look at inflation, can you move from inflation? No, you can’t so when you have to decide do I pay 20 bucks for a jug of milk or pay for gas in my car to get to work or do I pay my mortgage over electric bill but can’t pay the others, then you will care, when you lose or on the verge of losing everything you have, then you will care, but as we all know it will be to late by then. And remember, the more people that go down, the less that are there to help you back up when you fall!
“Religious exemptions from otherwise applicable law violate the Constitution.”
You sound vaxxed. Or not vaxxed enough. Go get your booster, buster. Get two.
Jack,
Is morons and stupid and slaves your favorite words ?
” Not realizing even being complicit makes you at fault and what is funny is how you get on here and run your mouth about how you don’t like something you are helping push through, or by not doing anything to stop it or slow it or change it, ” So tell me oh great one, what are you doing about it ?
Oh I know, You just like to bitch and complain about others while you have no actions or resolutions of your own.
Jack, it’s rough out there, put on a helmet.
Jack,
” And I tried to tell you morons that it did, but again you all want to be a slave to the system so you go along to get along. ”
Who are you trying to tell ? Do you have a media outlet or social page that no one here knows about ?
Do you have a bill board on rt50 or rt13 or in town that nobody knows about ?
Are you a street corner preacher ?
Please tell me where I can find you so I may collect the vast knowledge that you seem to have over everyone else.
Please enlighten us all with your teachings or you can do as you tell us all to do ….. Shut the F up.
I agree 200%!!!