News & Analysis as of August 30, 2025

Title VII

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Explaining the Current Law on Vaccine Mandates

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP on 8/15/2025

Given the slow progress of civil litigation in the U.S., federal courts continue to hear challenges to employer vaccination mandates imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to 2023, employers generally held the upper hand...more

Seventh Circuit: Religious Discrimination Claim Survives Motion to Dismiss Even if Request For Religious Exemption to COVID-19...

Seyfarth Shaw LLP on 8/29/2024

Seyfarth Synopsis: In two cases issued by the Seventh Circuit, Passarella and Dottenwhy v. Aspirus, Inc. and Bube and Hedrington v. Aspirus Hospital, Inc. the Court held that at the motion to dismiss stage, the fact that a...more

Federal Courts Reaching Consensus on Religious Exemptions From Vaccine Mandates

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP on 8/2/2024

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers attempting to enforce safety policies faced resistance from employees opposed to vaccination mandates. In many cases, employees claimed that taking the vaccine violated...more

Employee Religious-Exemption Protections Safeguarded in COVID-19 Discrimination Claim

Goldberg Segalla on 2/8/2024

On January 25, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s (CHOP) motion to dismiss plaintiff Donald Glover’s complaint in Donald Glover v. The Children’s...more

MA Federal Court Issues Favorable Ruling for Employers in Case Involving COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate and Request for Religious...

Bowditch & Dewey on 8/2/2023

On July 20, 2023, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissed an employee’s Title VII lawsuit, by which she challenged her employer’s denial of her request for religious exemption from a...more

Religious Institutions Update: July 2023

Holland & Knight LLP on 7/27/2023

Supreme Court Decides Freedom of Speech Trumps Public Accommodations Law In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, No. 21-476 (June 30, 2023), the U.S. Supreme Court reversed 6-3 the lower courts' denial of the injunction the plaintiff...more

Smucker’s Out of a Jam: Sixth Circuit Says Being a Federal Contractor Does Not Make You a State Actor

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP on 3/21/2023

If you take on a federal contract, does that make you a state actor? No, according to a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel in Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company. During World War II, the Army included Smucker’s apple butter in its...more

ABCs of employment law: Religious accommodation

Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP on 4/15/2022

Second post in our series. NOTE FROM ROBIN: Last month, I posted the first in what will be a series of very basic explanations of the federal laws that govern the workplace. I could not resist having religious...more

EEOC Issues Employer Guidance for COVID-19 Vaccinations and Religious Objections

Husch Blackwell LLP on 3/14/2022

Throughout the COVID pandemic, healthcare employers have navigated the challenge of balancing safety concerns with employee requests for religious exemption from the vaccine. Since lifting the stay of the CMS rule requiring...more

EEOC Issues Updated Guidance Regarding Religious Objections to COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements

Bowditch & Dewey on 3/9/2022

The EEOC recently issued updated guidance regarding religious objections to COVID-19 vaccination requirements. This updated guidance, in the form of FAQs, addresses the circumstances under which employers may need to provide...more

Religious Institutions Update: February 2022

Holland & Knight LLP on 2/4/2022

Religious Exemption to States' Mandatory Vaccination Statute Not Necessary In Does 1-6 v. Mills, No. 1:21-cv-00242, 2021 WL 4783626 (D. Me. Oct. 13, 2021), the court denied injunctive relief to plaintiff healthcare workers...more

Vaccine Mandate Puts Enforcement on NYC Employers

Cole Schotz on 12/28/2021

A universal vaccine mandate comes to New York employers courtesy of New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Compliance in Your Office- Effective this week, in accordance with the Commissioner of the New...more

Second Circuit Rejects Arbitration-Ordered Procedure for Determining Religious Exemptions to Vaccines in Favor of Title VII...

Carlton Fields on 12/22/2021

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently invalidated an arbitrator’s procedure for determining whether New York City Department of Education employees would receive religious accommodations to a vaccine mandate after...more

Religious Exemptions to COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Do Not Include Political, Social, Economic Beliefs, According to EEOC

Hinshaw & Culbertson - Employment Law... on 11/29/2021

On November 5, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). It required employers of 100 or more employees to institute mandates requiring employees to be fully...more

EEOC Publishes New Guidance Regarding Objections to COVID-19 Vaccines Based Upon Employee Religious Beliefs

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP on 11/18/2021

On October 25, 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) expanded its prior guidance “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws” to include recommendations for...more

Second Circuit lifts injunction on NY health care vaccine mandate

Hogan Lovells on 11/17/2021

On October 12, 2021, a court in the Northern District of New York preliminarily enjoined the New York State Department of Health’s (DOH) COVID-19 vaccination rule for healthcare employees to the extent it required employers...more

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Issues Updated Guidance on COVID-19

Chartwell Law on 11/10/2021

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has recently issued updated guidance regarding COVID-19, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Rehabilitation Act and other EEO laws....more

New OSHA and CMS COVID-19 Vaccination & Testing Mandates: What Employers Need to Know

Holland & Hart - Employers' Lawyers on 11/8/2021

Today, the Department of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued its Covid-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its...more

CMS Vaccine Mandate for Healthcare Workers: Resources for Preparing Your Policies

Holland & Hart - Health Law Blog on 11/8/2021

Under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)’s new vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, facilities must draft and implement policies and procedures by December 6, 2021 to ensure covered personnel are fully...more

Details on OSHA, CMS Vaccination Rules Released

Foley Hoag LLP on 11/8/2021

On November 6, 2021, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked enforcement of the OSHA vaccination-or-testing rule. Citing “grave statutory and constitutional issues” with the rule, a three-judge panel issued the...more

What Healthcare Employers Need to Know About the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Vaccine Mandate

Jackson Lewis P.C. on 11/8/2021

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) establishing the COVID-19 vaccination requirements for staff employed at Medicare- and Medicaid-certified providers and suppliers....more

Making Room for Vaccinated, Unvaccinated Employees Under Same Roof

Holland & Hart - Employers' Lawyers on 11/3/2021

Question: We aren’t sure we want to permit someone who isn’t vaccinated to work closely with us and are particularly concerned because the unvaccinated employee is sitting next to an enclosed area with a fully vaccinated...more

For Employers Making the Tough Calls in the Vaccine Mandate Trenches: EEOC Issues Welcome Guidance Clarifying What is -- and Is...

Maynard Nexsen on 11/1/2021

Over the last several weeks, employers, in tandem with their legal counsel, have been grappling in good faith with religious exemption requests pouring in following the imposition of COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The analysis...more

EEOC Expands Guidance for Employers on Religious Objections to Workplace Vaccination Requirements

Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis LLP on 11/1/2021

What You Should Know: •The latest EEOC guidance explains how Title VII applies when an applicant or employee requests exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine requirement because of the individual’s sincerely held religious...more

Vaccine Mandates and Religious Exemptions: Why Employers are Confused

Rumberger | Kirk on 10/29/2021

On January 20, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order on Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing in which he ordered the heads of executive departments and Federal agencies to immediately take action...more

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