(LifeSiteNews) — The Trump administration is delivering justice for employees who were forced out of their job for declining the abortion-tainted COVID shot – including a recent $1 million settlement.
Mercyhealth agreed to the settlement after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigated the healthcare organization, which operates clinics and hospitals in Wisconsin and Illinois, for “denying [employees] a religious accommodation and either terminating their employment or subjecting them to a wage deduction.”
“The EEOC also found reasonable cause to believe that Mercyhealth discriminated against a class of similarly situated employees across all its facilities from September 2021 to May 2022 by denying them an opportunity to request a religious accommodation, opting instead either to terminate their employment or withhold money from their pay,” the commission announced.
The pay withholding was essentially a $60 monthly tax on individuals who chose to decline the COVID-19 jab for religious reason. The shots are derived from aborted fetal cell tissue lines, which raised serious ethical concerns for many Christians. The hospital system called the tax a “vaccine incentive charge.”
The EEOC notes that the hospital’s practices appeared to violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination based on religion.”
“Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on religion,” the EEOC stated.
Mercyhealth will “provide back pay and compensatory damages to the aggrieved individuals.”
It also agreed to further training on religious accommodation requests and monitoring by the EEOC.
Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas explained the importance of the settlement further in a statement.
“At the start of my tenure as Acting Chair of the EEOC, I committed to focusing our agency’s resources to address the very real problem of religious discrimination, and this resolution is just the beginning,” Lucas stated
“This is an example of what our agency can accomplish when we work with employers to ensure that the doors of our workplaces are equally open to religious employees,” she stated. “I am proud of the monetary relief that we have obtained here, and I am equally proud that these employees—who remained committed to their religious beliefs and practice at great personal cost—will receive job offers.”
“Mercyhealth respects the religious beliefs and practices of its employees,” Vice President of Clinical Operations Kara Sankey stated on behalf of the health organization.
Liberty Counsel, which represented Mercyhealth employees who objected to the vaccine policy, said the settlement is good but took too long.
“During the COVID mandates, Liberty Counsel assisted many Mercyhealth employees whose religious accommodations had been denied. While these health care workers are getting much deserved relief, the relief is very late as it has been nearly four years since their unconstitutional treatment,” the religious liberty group wrote on its website.
Chairman Mat Staver provided further analysis.
“This hospital system did not live up to its name and instead was merciless to its faithful and dedicated workers,” he said. “This class-wide settlement is rightly deserved for these health care employees who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the experimental COVID shot.”
Employees, Staver said, “should never have to choose between their faith and their job.”
Trump admin continues fight for religious liberty
The Trump administration has continued to pursue other cases of discrimination against individuals who decided not to take the COVID jab for religious or other reasons.
As recently reported by LifeSiteNews, the Trump administration sued the Mayo Clinic for allegedly coercing a security guard into taking the COVID shot.
The lawsuit, filed on July 30, accuses the Minnesota-based clinic of violating the civil rights of security guard Cody Schultz by rejecting his religious exemption request from a COVID shot mandate in 2021. Schultz, a member of the Assemblies of God church, said taking the shot conflicted with his religious beliefs.
He eventually took the jab after exhausting his options to get exempted – including offering to wear a mask and submit to regular testing. He also had already contracted COVID, meaning he likely had the antibodies.
In addition to religious liberty concerns, the COVID shots have also come under scrutiny for being dangerous. In June, the Food and Drug Administration announced a new warning for mRNA COVID shots due to the risk of young men developing serious heart problems.
