The University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine will pay more than $10.3 million to 18 faculty and students whose religious exemptions to the school’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy were denied, a group representing the plaintiffs announced Monday.
The lawsuit challenged the university’s refusal to accommodate sincerely held religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine. The plaintiffs, who sued anonymously, included physicians, medical students, nurses and administrative staff.
The Thomas More Society, which filed the lawsuit and represents clients in religious liberty cases nationwide, stated that the settlement is a rare instance in which plaintiffs recovered monetary damages under the First Amendment for a government COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Michael McHale, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, said the resolution cannot undo the harm inflicted on the plaintiffs.
“No amount of compensation or course-correction” can make up for the damage caused by the university’s vaccine mandate, McHale said. “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.”
Details of the settlement, which followed more than a year of negotiations, were not released. According to the Thomas More Society, the school agreed to cover damages, tuition and attorneys’ fees.
The settlement ends nearly five years of related litigation in state and federal courts.
Hellbound and Down 