On March 28, 2022, the US District Court in Fort Worth, Texas offered a new opinion in the ongoing case of U.S. Navy Seals and other sailors fighting for their right to refuse the COVID-19 vaccination on religious grounds.

Judge Reed O’Connor partially granted the request to make the case a class action lawsuit on behalf of 4,095 sailors, and he granted a class-wide preliminary injunction protecting the service members from forced vaccination until the case can go to trial. While the injunction stops the Navy from firing folks, it is not applicable, “insofar as it precludes the Navy from considering respondents’ vaccination status in making deployment, assignment, and other operational decisions,” based on a ruling from the US Supreme Court. Reviewing the case history, Judge O’Connor notes that on January 3, he had granted the Seals a preliminary injunction stopping the Navy from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccination rules with respect to 35 plaintiffs who objected to the vaccine on religious grounds.

4,095 Requests, Zero Granted

The Seals allege that the government violated this order by stopping some of them from, “attending training, receiving medical treatment, or returning to their job duties.” Since the original injunction, the plaintiffs determined to make the case a class action on behalf of 4,095 Navy sailors who have requested religious accommodation from the COVID-19 vaccine rules. As of February 3, zero requests for accommodation had been granted, 3,728 were denied, and 285 remained in process. When it comes to medical exemptions, on the other hand, 263 had been granted on a permanent or temporary basis. Turning to the legal standard for an injunction, O’Connor notes that the sailors must show a likelihood of success, a substantial threat of irreparable harm, and that the injunction will be in the public interest. 

Requests Denied, Delayed, or Dismissed

As to whether a class action is appropriate, the judge quotes a prior ruling: “Common questions that apply to all class members involve whether the Navy inappropriately discriminated against religious belief in compelling vaccination despite those beliefs, refusing to accommodate those beliefs, and granting exemptions for secular but not religious reasons.” Also, each potential class member has had the “same injury” in that each has submitted a religious accommodation request and each has had said request, “denied, delayed, or dismissed on appeal.” Per O’Connor and as noted above, “Exactly zero requests have been granted.” He also stated that, “it is hard to imagine a more consistent display of discrimination” and explained that the sailors have suffered serious harm to their religious liberty under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA): “The crisis of conscience imposed by the mandate is itself an irreparable harm.”    

Class Members Need Not Wait for “Empty Formalities”

The judge also points out that the record shows that, “the denial of each [religious accommodation] request is predetermined.” And this is clearer than at the time of the original January 3 restraining order, in that now, “the Navy has finally adjudicated at least eighty-one appeals by denying each of them. Even though the Navy has adjudicated thousands of requests, it has not granted a single one.” O’Connor goes on to say, “These class members need not wait for the Navy to engage in even more empty formalities.” Under the RFRA, government can interfere with the exercise of religion only if it shows that the burden, “(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” But the Navy’s decision to grant hundreds of permanent and temporary medical exemptions, “belies [their] insistence on complete uniformity and widespread vaccination.” And the plaintiffs, and some of the class members, “have already provided evidence of demotions, reassignments, threat of separation, and other punitive measures as a result of their religious accommodation requests.” Finally, returning to the “crisis of conscience” experienced by folks who are forced to decide between their rights and their paycheck, O’Connor opines that, “The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”