{"id":1556274,"date":"2022-07-15T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T16:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1556274"},"modified":"2022-07-15T12:04:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T16:04:19","slug":"court-blocks-biden-admin-from-punishing-unvaccinated-air-force-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-blocks-biden-admin-from-punishing-unvaccinated-air-force-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Blocks Biden Admin From Punishing Unvaccinated Air Force Members"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcourt-blocks-biden-admin-from-punishing-unvaccinated-air-force-members%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1556274&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A federal district court in Ohio has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from enforcing the COVID-19 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-vaccine-mandate\">vaccine mandate<\/a> on thousands of U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-air-force\">Air Force<\/a> service members who remain unvaccinated after having opposed the shot on religious grounds but have had their religious exemption applications denied.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. District Court Judge Matthew McFarland, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in late 2019, issued a temporary restraining order filed on Thursday preventing the Biden administration from taking any action for at least 14 days against any Air Force member who opted not to take the COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n<p>The judge\u2019s ruling also\u00a0grants the case \u201cclass status,\u201d which means the temporary restraining order will grant relief to all members of the Air Force who submitted a religious accommodation request from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate from Sept. 1, 2021, to the present, and were confirmed via the\u00a0Air Force Chaplains as having a\u00a0sincerely held religious belief, but had their requests denied or not yet acted upon.\u00a0Plaintiffs had contended that such a class would include over 12,000 airmen.<\/p>\n<p>The action stems from a case filed in February 2022 challenging the Biden administration\u2019s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Plaintiffs comprise 18 active-duty members of the Air Force serving at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio; Hurlburt Field in Florida; Randolph Air Force Base in Texas; and Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia, plus all similarly affected members.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe court has already granted a preliminary injunction to our 18 original plaintiffs,\u201d an attorney in the case, Tom Bruns of Siri &#038; Glimstad law firm, told The Epoch Times. \u201cThe court has now granted a class certification\u2014and that\u2019s kind of the historic moment\u2014Air Force-wide, service-wide, it covers every member of the Air Force. And now he\u2019s saying, \u2018Why shouldn\u2019t I grant the preliminary injunction to all those folks?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McFarland wrote in his order\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/lc.org\/071422OhioAirForceOrderTRO.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) in granting the class status:\u00a0\u201cThey face separation from the Air Force and other disciplinary measures. A single injunction would provide relief to the entire class. Indeed, the main purpose of a [lawsuit class] is to provide relief through a single injunction or declaratory judgment. Because Defendants have uniformly maintained a policy of overriding Airmen\u2019s religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine, they have acted \u2018on grounds that apply generally to the class.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMoreover, the class definition requires that a Chaplain certify that the airman\u2019s religious beliefs are sincerely held. Finally, a single injunction would provide the proposed class with the relief they seek from the harm they stand to suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McFarland gave Air Force officials until\u00a0July 21 to file a response \u201cidentifying why this Court should not grant a class-wide preliminary injunction.\u201d He also gave plaintiffs an opportunity to then file a response by July 25.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.af.mil\/News\/Article-Display\/Article\/3091177\/daf-covid-19-statistics-july-12-2022\/\">data<\/a> from the Air Force, as of July 11, over 6,800 service members have been denied religious accommodation requests. Only 104 have had their applications approved. Meanwhile, 834 members have been \u201cadministratively separated\u201d by the force. According to the figures, 97.1 percent of the Air Force has been fully vaccinated, and 0.1 percent has been partially vaccinated.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3946230\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/08\/12\/GettyImages-1230280346-1200x799.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3946230\" src=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/08\/12\/GettyImages-1230280346-600x399.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> Nurse and Army veteran Renee Langone administers a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to U.S. Air Force (active duty reservist) Dr. Pei-Chun McGregor at the West Roxbury VA Medical Center in Boston, Mass., on Dec. 23, 2020. (Joseph Prezioso\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<h2>Painful Consequences<\/h2>\n<p>McFarland\u2019s order came in the nick of time for some airmen. Many have received notices in the last week, with a date of their final day, an airman at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>One client was in the middle of a board hearing determining his future with the service, Attorney Wendy Cox of Siri &#038; Glimstad law firm, told The Epoch Times. Objecting to the COVID-19 shot put airmen at risk of job loss and disciplinary measures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the officers we were representing was facing $1,000 a month pay reduction for two months as well as an official letter of reprimand,\u201d Cox said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had people removed from positions of commands because of their alleged violation of this order to get a vaccination, of which they are unable to get because it violates their religious beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome were stranded in foreign countries after refusing the shot, and missed weddings. There\u2019s some pretty tragic stories about what has happened,\u201d Cox said.<\/p>\n<p>The Air Force officials told the court that they had every consequence still on the table for service members who refused to get the shot, and those consequences included everything up to court martial and two years incarceration at Leavenworth, the attorneys said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe proof in the case was very clear. The Air Force tried to pretend that they did individualized analysis of each service member\u2019s religious objection, and, and that did occur in terms of the service member proving they had a sincerely held religious belief,\u201d Bruns said. \u201cBut then the Air Force, in its affidavits, proved that when it came to accommodating that belief, they took the position we can\u2019t grant religious exemptions, because we have to save these slots for administrative and medical exemptions. So their own proof was \u2018We didn\u2019t do the individualized analysis on the back end, because we weren\u2019t granting any religious exemptions.\u2019 And it was only once the lawsuits got filed, that they granted a few religious exemptions. And all of those folks were near the end of their career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Air Force wanted the airmen\u2019s cases heard individually, but in his decision allowing class status, McFarland noted how the Air Force did not consider each case individually when denying religious accommodation requests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDefendants appear to again argue that the court must individually analyze each airmen\u2019s claims on the one hand, while systematically denying all religious accommodation requests despite the factual differences defendants claim the court should consider on the other,\u201d McFarland wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Court appreciates there may be minor factual differences between the members of the class, including roles, responsibilities, levels of proximity, likelihood of deployment or travel, and ability to telework, as well as different religious beliefs and reasons for objecting to the COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, these minor differences do not outweigh that defendants\u2019 typical response when receiving a religious accommodation request is to deny it. The typicality of the putative class is reflected in the fact that defendants have indiscriminately denied almost all religious accommodation requests, and their use of form letters to deny the accommodation requests. Such facts suggest that defendants do not individually weigh each applicant\u2019s belief or circumstances in issuing their response, further cementing the typicality of the class.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-beth-brelje\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Beth.jpeg\" alt=\"Beth Brelje\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Beth Brelje is an investigative journalist covering Pennsylvania politics, courts, and the commonwealth\u2019s most interesting and sometimes hidden news. <\/p>\n<p>Send her your story ideas: Beth.brelje@epochtimes.us<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-mimi-nguyen-ly\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/WEB_MimiNguyen_1.jpg\" alt=\"Mimi Nguyen Ly\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Mimi Nguyen Ly covers world news with a focus on U.S. news. Contact her at mimi.nl@epochtimes.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal district court in Ohio has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from enforcing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on thousands of U.S. Air Force service members who remain unvaccinated after<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1556274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1556274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1556274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1556274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1556274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}