A group of ten New York City teachers who were fired for rejecting the Covid-19 vaccine just won a big battle in the courtroom against the New York City Department of Education, as the State Supreme Court held that they have to be reinstated with back pay.
State Supreme Court Judge Ralph J. Porzio, in his ruling, held that the city’s Department of Education had acted in an unlawful, arbitrary, and capricious manner when it fired the employees after denying their requests for religious accommodation. The teachers had requested a religious exemption to the city’s vaccine mandate, but were refused it by city officials.
Judge Porzio, in his 22-page opinion on the matter, ruled that there was no “rational basis” for the vaccine mandate as created by the city, writing, “This Court sees no rational basis for not allowing unvaccinated classroom teachers in amongst an admitted population of primarily unvaccinated students.”
Continuing, Judge Porzio ruled that the summary denial of their religious exemption request was, among other things, unreasonable. He wrote, “As such, the decision to summarily deny the classroom teachers amongst the Panel Petitioners based on an undue hardship, without any further evidence of individualized analysis, is arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable. As such, each classroom teacher amongst the Panel Petitioners is entitled to a religious exemption from the Vaccine Mandate.”
The attorney for the plaintiffs noted that the case could set an important precedent for those seeking religious exemptions to mandates, saying, “The Court’s decision not only grants relief to these ten teachers, but it also sets important precedent for all other teachers denied religious accommodation.”
Their attorney added, “The Court agreed that employees were not required to submit applications through the prior unlawful process but still declined to award relief to those plaintiffs on the grounds that there were contested issues of fact as to whether these plaintiffs submitted applications under the new process. This is an error, and we will be making a motion to reargue on their behalf.”
Further, she noted that the new claims filed as a result of this new precedent could expand the issue significantly, saying, “The judge’s ruling yesterday, while not everything we wanted, is a precedent-setting victory. The court’s ruling in the class certification still leaves the door open to future relief for thousands of teachers negatively affected by the vaccine requirement. We intend to file a motion of reconsideration on a narrower basis. Rather than waste public resources clogging the courts with so many individual lawsuits, legal action that will remedy these discriminatory policies for all impacted workers only makes sense.”
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One of the victorious teachers commented on the matter as well, saying that the victory is a large one but doesn’t come close to being enough for those who lost their employment in the city as the result of the mandate.
As he put it, “Today’s ruling is bittersweet. While it’s an important step in the right direction, justice for only 10 of us doesn’t even scratch the surface of the injustice suffered by NYC workers as a result of this illegal mandate.”