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New York Teachers’ Lawsuit Over Religious Exemptions Allowed to Move Forward, Supreme Court Rules
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Michael Ejercito
Jul 23, 2023, 9:10:28 PM7/23/23
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https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/157emnd/new_york_teachers_lawsuit_over_religious/
New York Teachers’ Lawsuit Over Religious Exemptions Allowed to Move
Forward, Supreme Court Rules
A New York State Supreme Court judge today denied a motion to dismiss a
lawsuit brought by New York City Department of Education workers who
were denied religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
By
Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.
16
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nyc-lawsuit-religious-exemptions-covid-vaccine/
Link copied
nyc lawsuit religious exemption covid vaccine feature
Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day.
It's free.
New York State Supreme Court Judge Ralph J. Porzio today denied the
City’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by New York Department of
Education (DOE) workers who were denied religious accommodation from the
COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Sujata Gibson, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told The Defender the decision
was “huge” for the plaintiffs:
“Judge Porzio made the right decision, followed the law, and protected
thousands of people who deserve their day in court and deserve relief
from the outrageous religious discrimination that they faced.”
On May 18, Gibson argued against the motion by the city to dismiss
DiCapua v. City of New York in Judge Porzio’s Staten Island courtroom.
The lawsuit was filed in February by Teachers For Choice and other fired
NYC DOE employees and was sponsored in part by Children’s Health Defense
(CHD) and CHD-New York.
The lawsuit alleges that defendants New York City and the New York City
DOE, “harassed, denigrated, and discriminated against” workers seeking
religious exemption when implementing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
In doing so, the defendants engaged in a continuing pattern of
discriminatory conduct against the DOE workers in violation of the New
York State Constitution, the New York State Human Rights Law, the New
York City Human Rights Law and Article 78 of the Civil Practice Law and
Rules.
The plaintiffs seek to have their jobs reinstated, back pay and
benefits, seniority and pension credits restored.
Gibson told The Defender that well over 150 people attended the court
session, which is just a fraction of the up to 7,000 people affected by
the denial of religious exemptions.
She said the people who attended were dignified and sincere, which she
thinks impressed the court, adding:
“It’s important for the court to see how many people are impacted …
“People traveled for this appearance from out of state — who have had to
move out of state. Some people took two hours on trains and buses, on
public transportation to get here from other boroughs, and from other
parts of the state.
“It really means a lot to people. And it means a lot to the court to see
how much it means to people.”
Plaintiffs petition for class action
The next hearing will take place on Aug. 14, when Judge Porzio may
decide on the plaintiff’s motion to certify class status for all DOE
employees adversely affected by the alleged discriminatory policies.
He could also decide on the Article 78 question — which is whether to
overturn the DOE’s determination on the religious exemptions and offer
relief to the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification for all people
affected by the DOE’s decisions on religious exemption, citing that all
members of the class were affected by the same errors of law and that
“the autogenerated, vague and conclusory denials” were all “arbitrary
and capricious.”
The defendants opposed the motion to certify a class, arguing that the
class definition was overly broad, that the class certification would
require “mini-trials” for each class member and that the petitioners
didn’t meet the minimum requirements for commonality defined in New York
law.
If Judge Porzio recognizes the class, and if the plaintiffs win relief,
all members of the class would be reinstated, Gibson told The Defender.
“All of their denials would be vacated as if they never happened, and
they’d be reinstated with full seniority and no break in service and
back pay and attorney’s fees.”
But even if the workers win the motion to define the class and win
relief, there will still be work to be done, Gibson said.
Once the denied exemptions are reversed, the violations of the New York
State Constitution and the state and city human rights laws will still
have to be litigated.
“We can prove our case for why the city should be liable not only for
back pay but also for costs,” Gibson said. She added:
“A lot of people had enormous, enormous collateral damage here.
“They lost rent-controlled apartments, their homes were foreclosed.
They’ve had to move. People have gotten severely sick. Some people took
the vaccine and got ill, some people just got ill from all of the stress
of being ostracized and discriminated against and bullied for the last
two years. Some people have lost career opportunities. Most of them —
really all of them — have been subjected to extreme pain and suffering.”
In Kane v. de Blasio, a case brought by many of the same plaintiffs and
also represented by Gibson and supported by CHD in federal court, the
2nd Circuit Court of Appeals already held that DOE’s religious
accommodation policies were unconstitutional.
While resolution of the constitutional claims is pending in the
appellate courts, plaintiffs were authorized to bring their statutory
claims and seek certification as a class in New York State court after
the district court declined to exercise jurisdiction over their state
claims.
‘It felt like heresy tribunals’
In August 2021, New York City announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for
DOE employees.
The city initially indicated it would not consider religious exemptions,
but after a local court issued a temporary restraining order, the city
agreed to adopt an accommodation policy.
The accommodation policy, however, was “facially discriminatory,”
according to Gibson, because it was explicit that religious
accommodation requests must be denied to anyone who is not a member of a
“recognized” and “established” religious organization whose leader is
against vaccination.
Christian Scientists were listed as the only example of a religion that
a person could belong to and be granted a religious exemption.
“Right in its written policy, [DOE] required discrimination against
unorthodox beliefs or most religions, basically,” Gibson said. “So [for
example] they would deny all Catholics because the Catholic pope was
vaccinated.”
On that basis, DOE denied religious exemptions to Christians, Jews,
Buddhists and others, saying that although they believed that people’s
religious objects were sincere, they did not meet the criteria for
exemption.
“It felt like heresy tribunals,” Gibson said.
DOE granted religious accommodation for only 162 out of 7,000 requests.
The remaining employees who were not vaccinated were involuntarily
suspended without pay and ultimately terminated, with “problem” codes
attached to their permanent employee records and hurdles to getting
employment anywhere, not just at the DOE.
Ten DOE employees filed a lawsuit, backed by CHD, in federal court (Kane
v. de Blasio). The district court denied their requested injunction
against the mandate.
The plaintiffs appealed and they were joined on appeal by another group
of educators denied relief in the lower court (Keil v. City of New
York). The two lawsuits are currently consolidated under Kane v. de
Blasio in the federal court.
New York’s 2nd Circuit overruled the lower court, holding that the
religious accommodation as it was written is unconstitutional and that
it is illegal to deny a person religious accommodation “based on someone
else’s publicly expressed religious views — even the leader of her faith.”
The case was sent back to the lower court after the city promised to
provide “fresh consideration” to the requests for religious exemption by
convening a citywide panel that would use standards required by Title
VII, the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human
Rights Law, and to reinstate people with back pay if they qualified
under those standards.
“But the citywide panel continued to apply the same unlawful standards,”
Gibson told The Defender.
The panel re-reviewed the petitions of the 10 employees who filed the
lawsuit, but they reversed only one of them. “They sent them all an
auto-generated email that said, ‘does not meet criteria,’ and that’s
it,” Gibson said.
Workers applying for religious exemption who went to the citywide panel
were given the additional task of proving their exemption would not
place an “undue hardship” on the city. But, Gibson said, under the city
human rights law, the burden of demonstrating undue hardship rests with
the city.
The plaintiffs in the consolidated cases again asked the 2nd Circuit
court to stop the enforcement of the mandate in October 2022.
In February 2023, two days before oral arguments were set to take place
at the 2nd Circuit for the consolidated federal lawsuits, Mayor Eric
Adams announced the city would end the vaccine mandate for city workers.
However, those city workers who were fired as a result of not receiving
the COVID-19 vaccine were not automatically reinstated. Instead, they
have simply been told they can reapply for employment with the city.
Gibson told The Defender the withdrawal of the city’s vaccine mandate
makes no difference for those teachers and DOE employees who were fired
due to their unvaccinated status.
“It doesn’t change anything,” she said. “New York City’s discriminatory
policies ruined a lot of lives and they need to make amends and
understand that this cannot happen again.”
While the federal Kane v. de Blasio case before the 2nd Circuit
continues to challenge the near-blanket denial of religious exemption
requests by teachers on federal constitutional grounds, the current
lawsuit against the city claims the state constitution was violated on
the basis of freedom of religion rights.
The state case that moved forward today seeks class-action status, “to
get relief for every DOE employee and contractor that was denied
reasonable religious accommodation under the discriminatory policies,”
Gibson said.
New York Teachers’ Lawsuit Over Religious Exemptions Allowed to Move
Forward, Supreme Court Rules
A New York State Supreme Court judge today denied a motion to dismiss a
lawsuit brought by New York City Department of Education workers who
were denied religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
By
Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.
16
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nyc-lawsuit-religious-exemptions-covid-vaccine/
Link copied
nyc lawsuit religious exemption covid vaccine feature
Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day.
It's free.
New York State Supreme Court Judge Ralph J. Porzio today denied the
City’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by New York Department of
Education (DOE) workers who were denied religious accommodation from the
COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Sujata Gibson, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told The Defender the decision
was “huge” for the plaintiffs:
“Judge Porzio made the right decision, followed the law, and protected
thousands of people who deserve their day in court and deserve relief
from the outrageous religious discrimination that they faced.”
On May 18, Gibson argued against the motion by the city to dismiss
DiCapua v. City of New York in Judge Porzio’s Staten Island courtroom.
The lawsuit was filed in February by Teachers For Choice and other fired
NYC DOE employees and was sponsored in part by Children’s Health Defense
(CHD) and CHD-New York.
The lawsuit alleges that defendants New York City and the New York City
DOE, “harassed, denigrated, and discriminated against” workers seeking
religious exemption when implementing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
In doing so, the defendants engaged in a continuing pattern of
discriminatory conduct against the DOE workers in violation of the New
York State Constitution, the New York State Human Rights Law, the New
York City Human Rights Law and Article 78 of the Civil Practice Law and
Rules.
The plaintiffs seek to have their jobs reinstated, back pay and
benefits, seniority and pension credits restored.
Gibson told The Defender that well over 150 people attended the court
session, which is just a fraction of the up to 7,000 people affected by
the denial of religious exemptions.
She said the people who attended were dignified and sincere, which she
thinks impressed the court, adding:
“It’s important for the court to see how many people are impacted …
“People traveled for this appearance from out of state — who have had to
move out of state. Some people took two hours on trains and buses, on
public transportation to get here from other boroughs, and from other
parts of the state.
“It really means a lot to people. And it means a lot to the court to see
how much it means to people.”
Plaintiffs petition for class action
The next hearing will take place on Aug. 14, when Judge Porzio may
decide on the plaintiff’s motion to certify class status for all DOE
employees adversely affected by the alleged discriminatory policies.
He could also decide on the Article 78 question — which is whether to
overturn the DOE’s determination on the religious exemptions and offer
relief to the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification for all people
affected by the DOE’s decisions on religious exemption, citing that all
members of the class were affected by the same errors of law and that
“the autogenerated, vague and conclusory denials” were all “arbitrary
and capricious.”
The defendants opposed the motion to certify a class, arguing that the
class definition was overly broad, that the class certification would
require “mini-trials” for each class member and that the petitioners
didn’t meet the minimum requirements for commonality defined in New York
law.
If Judge Porzio recognizes the class, and if the plaintiffs win relief,
all members of the class would be reinstated, Gibson told The Defender.
“All of their denials would be vacated as if they never happened, and
they’d be reinstated with full seniority and no break in service and
back pay and attorney’s fees.”
But even if the workers win the motion to define the class and win
relief, there will still be work to be done, Gibson said.
Once the denied exemptions are reversed, the violations of the New York
State Constitution and the state and city human rights laws will still
have to be litigated.
“We can prove our case for why the city should be liable not only for
back pay but also for costs,” Gibson said. She added:
“A lot of people had enormous, enormous collateral damage here.
“They lost rent-controlled apartments, their homes were foreclosed.
They’ve had to move. People have gotten severely sick. Some people took
the vaccine and got ill, some people just got ill from all of the stress
of being ostracized and discriminated against and bullied for the last
two years. Some people have lost career opportunities. Most of them —
really all of them — have been subjected to extreme pain and suffering.”
In Kane v. de Blasio, a case brought by many of the same plaintiffs and
also represented by Gibson and supported by CHD in federal court, the
2nd Circuit Court of Appeals already held that DOE’s religious
accommodation policies were unconstitutional.
While resolution of the constitutional claims is pending in the
appellate courts, plaintiffs were authorized to bring their statutory
claims and seek certification as a class in New York State court after
the district court declined to exercise jurisdiction over their state
claims.
‘It felt like heresy tribunals’
In August 2021, New York City announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for
DOE employees.
The city initially indicated it would not consider religious exemptions,
but after a local court issued a temporary restraining order, the city
agreed to adopt an accommodation policy.
The accommodation policy, however, was “facially discriminatory,”
according to Gibson, because it was explicit that religious
accommodation requests must be denied to anyone who is not a member of a
“recognized” and “established” religious organization whose leader is
against vaccination.
Christian Scientists were listed as the only example of a religion that
a person could belong to and be granted a religious exemption.
“Right in its written policy, [DOE] required discrimination against
unorthodox beliefs or most religions, basically,” Gibson said. “So [for
example] they would deny all Catholics because the Catholic pope was
vaccinated.”
On that basis, DOE denied religious exemptions to Christians, Jews,
Buddhists and others, saying that although they believed that people’s
religious objects were sincere, they did not meet the criteria for
exemption.
“It felt like heresy tribunals,” Gibson said.
DOE granted religious accommodation for only 162 out of 7,000 requests.
The remaining employees who were not vaccinated were involuntarily
suspended without pay and ultimately terminated, with “problem” codes
attached to their permanent employee records and hurdles to getting
employment anywhere, not just at the DOE.
Ten DOE employees filed a lawsuit, backed by CHD, in federal court (Kane
v. de Blasio). The district court denied their requested injunction
against the mandate.
The plaintiffs appealed and they were joined on appeal by another group
of educators denied relief in the lower court (Keil v. City of New
York). The two lawsuits are currently consolidated under Kane v. de
Blasio in the federal court.
New York’s 2nd Circuit overruled the lower court, holding that the
religious accommodation as it was written is unconstitutional and that
it is illegal to deny a person religious accommodation “based on someone
else’s publicly expressed religious views — even the leader of her faith.”
The case was sent back to the lower court after the city promised to
provide “fresh consideration” to the requests for religious exemption by
convening a citywide panel that would use standards required by Title
VII, the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human
Rights Law, and to reinstate people with back pay if they qualified
under those standards.
“But the citywide panel continued to apply the same unlawful standards,”
Gibson told The Defender.
The panel re-reviewed the petitions of the 10 employees who filed the
lawsuit, but they reversed only one of them. “They sent them all an
auto-generated email that said, ‘does not meet criteria,’ and that’s
it,” Gibson said.
Workers applying for religious exemption who went to the citywide panel
were given the additional task of proving their exemption would not
place an “undue hardship” on the city. But, Gibson said, under the city
human rights law, the burden of demonstrating undue hardship rests with
the city.
The plaintiffs in the consolidated cases again asked the 2nd Circuit
court to stop the enforcement of the mandate in October 2022.
In February 2023, two days before oral arguments were set to take place
at the 2nd Circuit for the consolidated federal lawsuits, Mayor Eric
Adams announced the city would end the vaccine mandate for city workers.
However, those city workers who were fired as a result of not receiving
the COVID-19 vaccine were not automatically reinstated. Instead, they
have simply been told they can reapply for employment with the city.
Gibson told The Defender the withdrawal of the city’s vaccine mandate
makes no difference for those teachers and DOE employees who were fired
due to their unvaccinated status.
“It doesn’t change anything,” she said. “New York City’s discriminatory
policies ruined a lot of lives and they need to make amends and
understand that this cannot happen again.”
While the federal Kane v. de Blasio case before the 2nd Circuit
continues to challenge the near-blanket denial of religious exemption
requests by teachers on federal constitutional grounds, the current
lawsuit against the city claims the state constitution was violated on
the basis of freedom of religion rights.
The state case that moved forward today seeks class-action status, “to
get relief for every DOE employee and contractor that was denied
reasonable religious accommodation under the discriminatory policies,”
Gibson said.
HeartDoc Andrew
Jul 23, 2023, 9:40:26 PM7/23/23
to
GOD" (Ephesians 6:11) which we put on as soon as we use
Apostle Paul's secret (http://bit.ly/Philippians4_12 ). Though masking
is less protective, it helps us avoid the appearance of doing the evil
of spreading airborne pathogens while there are people getting sick
because of not being 100% protected. It is written that we're to
"abstain from **all** appearance of doing evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22
w/**emphasis**).
Source:
https://biblehub.com/1_thessalonians/5-22.htm
Meanwhile, the only *perfect* (Matt 5:47-8) way to eradicate the
COVID-19 virus, thereby saving lives, in the US & elsewhere is by
rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) finding out at any given
moment, including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly
contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to
http://WDJW.great-site.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) for them to
call their doctor and self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of
stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the best while
preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations
and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu &
Delta lineage mutations combining via slip-RNA-replication to form
hybrids like http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current
COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Cardiologist with an http://bit.ly/EternalMedicalLicense
2024 & upwards non-partisan candidate for U.S. President:
http://WonderfullyHungry.org
and author of the 2PD-OMER Approach:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewCare
which is the only **healthy** cure for the U.S. healthcare crisis
Michael Ejercito
Jul 24, 2023, 12:24:35 PM7/24/23
to
Michael
HeartDoc Andrew
Jul 24, 2023, 12:33:22 PM7/24/23
to
Michael Ejercito wrote:
While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to
http://WDJW.great-site.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12 as shown by
http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://WDJW.great-site.net/VAT from around the heart
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to
http://WDJW.great-site.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12 as shown by
http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://WDJW.great-site.net/VAT from around the heart
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