Boston College asserts it had a religious-freedom right to make employees get Covid-19 shots
Boston College is fighting back against a worker who's suing it for disregarding what he claims is his religious right to not get a Covid-19 shot in a way that other organizations facing similar suits cannot: It argues it has its own religious rights under the First Amendment to require workers to get vaccinated.
In April, Avenir Agaj, who worked as a landscaper, sued BC in US District Court in Boston, arguing his 2021 firing violated his rights as a follower of Bogomil, a 10th-century gnostic Bulgarian breakaway from mainstream Christianity whose sacred texts were destroyed as heresies by both Catholic and Orthodox leaders but which he says bar him from ingesting "filth," such as vaccines.
In a response filed yesterday to his suit, Boston College argues that, as a Catholic institution, its demand that workers get vaccinated against Covid-19 or lose their jobs, was an exercise of its own religious rights under the First Amendment, in this case, because of a mandate by Pope Francis for Catholics to be vaccinated:
Boston College is a Jesuit, Catholic institution. On December 17, 2020, Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, ordered publication of a Note regarding vaccination in response to COVID-19. Ultimately issued by the Vatican on December 21, 2020, the Note referred to vaccination for COVID-19 and the "duty to protect one’s own health but also… the duty to preserve the common good" against the "grave danger" of the "otherwise uncontainable spread of a serious pathological agent…" Boston College’s vaccination policy adhered to and was informed by Church teaching on this subject. In issuing and acting on its vaccination policy, Boston College was engaged in the free exercise of its religious beliefs.
BC also argues that his initial application for a religious exemption did not even specify which religion he was an adherent of, let alone which of its specific tenets prohibited him from getting vaccinated, but that, in any case, it had more secular reasons for firing him - similar to those argued by government agencies and hospitals that have faced similar suits: BC says it had no way to provide a "reasonable accommodation" that would let Agaj stay employed, that in fact, granting his request would create "undue hardship." The filing does not detail just what sort of hardship the school would have faced.
The answer also implies BC has somehow obtained a detailed understanding of Bogomil beliefs:
If Plaintiff had a sincerely held religious belief, or routinely followed a sincerely-held religious practice, which Boston College denies, Boston College’s vaccination requirement was not in conflict with plaintiff’s religious belief or religious practice.
Earlier this month, a federal judge concluded that Agaj's follow-up to BC's denial of his exemption request did have just enough details of his beliefs to warrant letting him continue his case, if not enough to grant him victory and damages before trial:
Agaj has made a prima facie showing that his bona fide religious beliefs and practice were the reason for the adverse employment action against him. Boston College's motion to dismiss will, accordingly, be denied as to Agaj's religious discrimination claims.
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Comments
Verdict
Religion-based arguments both for and against vaccines are stupid.
Of greater concern ...
An employer asserting religious rights.
That is a concern for any woman of childbearing age, any gay person, any transperson, any person who lives with a partner and is unmarried, any person who is not of the religion of their employer, etc.
Pandora's Box of potential mayhem.
A concern of mine
People who want to prevent religious institutions from acting in accord with their religious beliefs.
They did that in the Soviet Union.
Oh you poor oppressed thing
Wage and hour laws apply to all employers. So do equal employment laws.
Get over it, honey. That's what a free society looks like - not corporations imposing their values on the people. Hobby Lobby has shown us how hypocrisy like that works.
Wrong as usual
See MGL c 151b s 4 (18). Carve outs for religious institutions.
And Hobby Lobby won their case.
I know you're not a lawyer but this stuff is easily found nowadays with this newfangled "internet"
So
Wage and hour laws don't apply?
Do tell.
Irrelevant
Wage and hour laws have nothing to do with this. Why didn't you look them up before making this inane statement? MGL ch 151.
151B is the relevant law.
I would have mercy but your snide sarcasm while being completely wrong merits correction.
Correct but wrong
Correct but wrong. Correct in that these are facts; wrong in that the privileging religion, and one religion in particular, will never lead to anything good.
Take it up with the Massachusetts legislature
and the Supreme Court. Most people agree with religious freedom. Beyond that, why is it that you only question the "privileging" of religion?
You couldn't protest fossil fuels as a member of Time is Up, try to impose that on the company, and remain employed in management in Exxon could you? You couldn't work for Planned Parenthood and post March for Life posters on the bulletin board, could you?
Define your terms
Define your terms. Exactly what does this mean?
Only the stupidest or most disingenuous person would deny that the phrase "religious freedom" has been used for the past thirty years to advance Christian supremacy and oppress anyone that Christian supremacists hate.
In other words....
If you don't see it and define it the same way as IBB, you're stupid or disingenuous. Got it. Name-calling isn't an argument.
Someone doesn't get "equal employment"
Yes, adherents of some mysterious Bulgarian medieval religion should not be denied employment based on religion, but it has been established that a religious institution can act of an employee is acting against the religion of said institution, as the actions of the individual counter the religious rights of the institution.
It's that crazy First Amendment, with it's protection of the freedom of religion, speech, and the press, along with the rights to peaceful assemble and to petition for the redress of grievances. I know a lot of people, yourself included, don't care for these things, but they exist.
Mm, sort of
Sort of true, although it has never been firmly establised what "acting against the religion of said institution" means, or what are the bounds on that. Religious institutions employ people in many capacities that have nothing whatsoever to do with the teaching or practice of their religion, from teaching calculus to taking out the trash. If a gay person is teaching calculus at a Catholic school, how is this "acting against the religion of said institution"?
Bit of a stretch to say "it's the First Amendment" when actions sanctioned by Bill Clinton's so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act trample on the rights of individuals in order to expand and maintain the cultural hegemony of Christianity in the US.
Freedom (I won't let you down)
George Michael playing lightly in the background...
Freedom (I won't let you down)
Freedom (I will not give you up)
Freedom (Gotta have some faith in the sound)
You've got to give what you take (It's the one good thing that I've got)
Freedom (I won't let you down)
Freedom (So please don't give me up)
Pretty cool and elegant reply by BC
Pretty much shuts the complaint down.
Don't like Catholic teaching? Don't apply to work for a Catholic institution.
Where does that end?
Are queer people not supposed to work at BC now? What if you work there and need/want an abortion?
the law is clear
As long as you don't publicly defy the religious nature of the institution, your private life is private.
You could get an abortion as long as you kept it to yourself and don't expect the Catholic Church to pay for it. Not rocket science to figure that out.
Solitary individuals attempting to publicly overthrow the basis of an institution for their own private wants don't fare well in any employment.
As far as BC goes, the lesbian feminist Mary Daly was a professor there for years, until she wanted to bar males from her classes and got eased into retirement.
Really?
Are you quite sure about that?
A religious test for
A religious test for continued employment?
So, if a non-Catholic woman worked at a Catholic institution they’d also he dictated not have an abortion, but to have a vaccination?
I am very much pro vaccine, but we can also walk and provide accommodations at the same time.
How much of a finger in the dike was the rigidity in not allowing exemptions? Would the dam have burst if we allowed flexibility?
What I find a too quiet subject is- did we expend the lives of too many essential employees in the very early days than we needed to for the sake of commerce? How many poorly managed kitchens doomed their employees to bring Covid home &c..?
Yeah
I love people who want to work for a religious organization and then act shocked that they hold religious beliefs. So many other places to look for work. I was raised Catholic, but I wouldn't work for a Catholic organization because I disagree with some of the tenants of the Church and they disagree with me. Period.
The big problem...
...is the relentless outsourcing of public services (and the accompanying flow of taxpayer dollars) to these religious institutions. The more religious institutions take over these services, the harder it is to avoid them while still working in these sectors.
Any stats on this big problem?
Religious institutions are monopolizing services, thus preventing you from finding work?
Which services (besides church services) are so monopolized by religious institutions that people can't find similar work with secular organizations?
Well...
...if you take a look at (for example) prison programs, you'll find that evangelical Christian churches pretty much have them in a headlock -- to the point where participation in prison programs is conditional on professing evangelical Christianity, in some cases.
This is not a new problem, EDDIE. But you knew that.
You spend a lot of time name-calling...
and telling people what they know or dont know, and very little time supporting your assertions with reason and facts. In sum, you have no stats on this "big problem" because it's really not a "big problem" that's forcing a bunch of people to work for religious organizations in order to make a living.
And your assertion about prison programming is nonsense - at least in this state. Inmates are not forced to attend church services and the state recruits chaplains from various denominations. The bulk of prison programs aren't connected to religion at all.
lol
The only one who did any namecalling here is you, EDDIE.
More...
unsupported assertions.
A stretch
I am all for religious freedom but..
To me this translates to "Don't try to find anything about my religion, texts were destroyed by the same people I work for".
I mean, if I had such strong religious convictions against vaccines, I certainly wouldn't want to work for the people that destroyed the texts of my religion. Seems paradoxical to me. I mean, if you are that devout, why you working for them?
Just another person who's hiding behind 'religious exemption' in order to avoid getting the axe and disobeying orders by their employer.
Quagmire
The state (court) has to be careful here. They cannot be the arbiter of what is or what is not allowed under any party's religion otherwise they violate the separation clause of church and state.
That has happened here on a couple of occasions only to have the SJC need to step in and fix things.
This has all of the hallmarks of two religious concepts being in conflict, regardless of what any of us may think. The question at hand will be if the employment was conducted properly and dismissal conducted properly, but specifically if anything in the employment contract spoke to this issue, i.e. can the employer impose a standard that was not contracted when the person was hired and was enough advance notification given.
Then, how is religious exemption allowed, tracked, and validated from a point dealing with the secular interest of an employer and employee relationship.
We cannot have everyone claiming religious exemption from all employer practices and rules, and we also cannot have an individual claiming a religious accommodation for what ever their actions might be.
This is why separation of church and state came into being. The only problem there was that it took government out of that conflict, but any business may be able to go there and het away with it.
If this had been submitted
to Reddit's "Am I The Asshole?" group, the user verdict would have been "Everyone sucks here.¨"