Trump’s EEOC goes after another company that required vaccines

NewsJeff Brumley | May 28, 2026

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An Oklahoma company has agreed to settle a federal religious and disability discrimination lawsuit stemming from its firing of unvaccinated employees during the pandemic, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced.

AG Equipment Co. in Broken Arrow will pay $4.2 million to more than 40 workers terminated due to its 2021 mandate that all employees, without exception, had to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, EEOC said May 18.

The situation dates back to 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic was sowing divisions in the U.S. over issues such as sheltering in place and vaccines. Many white evangelical churches were openly defiant in resisting government-led public health measures.

EEOC has redoubled its focus on “religious liberty” cases since President Donald Trump returned to office, resulting in at least 16 religious discrimination cases — many of them COVID related — and the recovery of $67 million.

In fall 2021, AG Equipment Co. required all employees to receive COVID-19 vaccinations. In response, several workers requested exemptions based on religious reasons and one provided a doctor’s note asking for an accommodation because of a medical condition, EEOC said.

However, the company refused to consider the requests and on Oct. 21 that year fired all those who had requested the exemptions in addition to anyone else who didn’t show proof of vaccination.

“When these workers asked for a simple religious accommodation, the company didn’t pause to listen or even consider the impact,” said Patrick J. Holman, trial attorney for EEOC’s Oklahoma City area office. “It fired every one of them outright — without a conversation and without any real inquiry into whether granting an accommodation would have caused the business any hardship at all. This is unlawful as well as unfair.”

The lawsuit said the company’s conduct violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on faith and disability. In addition to the financial compensation in consent decree ending the litigation, the company must train managers in Title VII compliance and inform employees of their right to religious and disability accommodations.

“Where an accommodation can be provided without undue hardship, the law requires it — the pandemic did not exempt employers from their legal obligations under Title VII and the ADA,” EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said. “The EEOC under my leadership will continue to hold employers accountable, deliver meaningful results, and restore dignity to American workers harmed by widespread COVID-19 vaccine-related civil rights violations.”

In March, the agency announced a $15 million conciliation agreement with an unnamed global technology company. “In its investigation, the EEOC found reasonable cause to believe that the company discriminated against a class of employees on the basis of religion and disability by denying their COVID-19 vaccine exemption requests and terminating employees who declined to receive vaccines.”

And Northwestern Medicine, a health care system in Chicago, agreed to pay $325,000 to employees who were denied vaccine exemptions based on religious beliefs dating back to November 2023, EEOC said May 26.

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Teller fired for saying 'have a blessed day'?

MyNews EWorld

Published on Jul 6, 2014

Polly Neace shares her story

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Religious time off requires reasonableness

PHILIP WALZER


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If I were to interview for this column, it might go like ... - Feb. 10, 2013


By Philip Walzer
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 10, 2013

The spring religious holidays fall relatively early this year. Passover will begin on March 25, followed by Good Friday on the 29th and Easter on March 31.

And why should that merit attention in a business column?

Because the holidays sometimes set off not just family anxiety, but also workplace discontent.

You can see the conflict coming. Say you’re a serious practitioner of your faith. You feel you need time off from the job to observe a religious holiday or the Sabbath. OK. Shift your mindset. Now you’re the CEO or office manager who receives the request for time off. You wonder: How will this affect business? You’ve got to make sure that customers are taken care of and the work flow continues unimpeded.

Federal law requires employers to “reasonably accommodate” workers’ religious beliefs – unless that imposes an “undue hardship,” such as a cost that’s beyond minimal. Of course, the interpretation of what’s “reasonable” or “undue” depends on the beholder, and the suits keep coming.

Since January 2012, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced at least five settlements of cases it brought against employers that declined workers’ requests for religious time off. Wal-Mart, for instance, agreed to pay $70,000. It had granted a Mormon employee’s request for Sundays off from 1995 until it changed its policy in 2009, the agency said.

After that, the man, an assistant manager in Washington state, sometimes found someone at his level to swap shifts with. When he couldn’t, he took Sundays off – and was disciplined.

I was unsuccessful in my attempt to survey a handful of companies about their policies. Smithfield Foods, Stihl, Wal-Mart and Kohl’s didn’t respond to my emails. Jill Hornbacher, a spokeswoman for Target in Minneapolis, emailed: “All I can share is that our team is our competitive advantage, and we work hard to keep our team members happy while ensuring our guests have an exceptional shopping experience in our stores.”

Local attorneys were more forthcoming. David Burton, head of the employment law section at Williams Mullen in Virginia Beach, said he gets a steady 10 to 15 calls a year from employers on how to handle requests from workers who want a religious holiday or weekly prayer day off.

“Most employers get it,” said Laura Geringer Gross, a lawyer with Kaufman & Canoles in Norfolk. “If they can accommodate someone’s religious beliefs, they will.”

But not always. A friend of mine who lives in Virginia Beach has had mixed success getting Saturdays off regularly to attend Jewish services, even though he has offered to work Sundays instead. Over the years, he said, it’s depended on the humor of his supervisor. These days, he’s having few problems.

Now the true-confession part: I, too, was involved in a religious-time-off standoff. Mine was with a previous employer, more than 25 years ago. It’s a bit hazy now, but at the time I worked on Saturdays and wanted the mornings off to go to services at a synagogue. All right, my editors said. See if you can trade shifts with somebody.

Burning with the righteousness and anger of a guy in his 20s, I said that wasn’t good enough. The result: I was transferred to another section of the newspaper and got Fridays and Saturdays off. It all worked out, though the incident probably killed my chances for a promotion.

Despite my hot-headed objections, Burton and Gross said employee-initiated trades pose a good solution. The keys, Burton said, are communication and compromise. “For employers, the most important thing is to be engaging and have a give-and-take discussion about it,” he said. “You cannot have a knee-jerk reaction of ‘No.’ ”

A company’s ability – and legal responsibility – to accommodate such requests depends on such factors as the size of its workforce, hours of operation and duties of the worker. Gross pointed to a court ruling in January dismissing an EEOC suit against Rent-A-Center, which had fired a manager who refused to work on Saturdays because he is a Seventh-day Adventist.

D.C. Judge Royce Lamberth said that Saturday was the “most important day of the week” for Rent-A-Center, which is closed on Sundays, and that the store was within its rights to require all managers to work on Saturdays.
Todd McFarland, the associate general counsel for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Silver Spring, Md., said he counsels members to be open to a range of solutions, from working Sundays to taking unpaid time off. “They need to be willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the Sabbath,” he said.

Some employers, however, don’t give them the chance, McFarland said. “There does tend to be a viewpoint in certain parts of the country that you should just be happy to have a job. Why should you be asking for anything else?”

Next month: The delicate art of writing self-evaluations. Let me know your tips.

Philip Walzer, 757-222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com


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EEOC Settles Seventh Day Adventist Religious Discrimination Suit

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Experts say religious discrimination claims in the workplace are expected to be a growing problem for employers.

By Judy Greenwald
Published: January 2, 2013

Future Workplace,
Policies and Procedures,
Discrimination and EEOC Compliance,
Staffing and the Law,


A Birmingham, Alabama-based manufacturing company has agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly refusing to hire a Seventh Day Adventist, the agency said.

The EEOC said late last month that when James Wright applied for employment with Altec Industries Inc.'s Burnsville, North Carolina, manufacturing facility, he said that as a Seventh Day Adventist, he could not work on his Sabbath, which runs from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. The EEOC charged in its complaint that Altec decided not to hire him as a result, which it said violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In addition to paying the $25,000, under terms of the settlement, Altec also agreed to provide annual training on religious discrimination to all of its managers and supervisors at its Burnsville facility, among other actions.

Lynette A. Barnes, regional attorney for the EEOC's Charlotte, North Carolina, district office said in a statement: "An employer cannot refuse to hire an applicant to avoid making a religious accommodation.

"Where there is a conflict between a religious belief and work rules, the law mandates that employers make a sincere effort to accommodate those beliefs, including at the application stage. We are pleased that the settlement with Altec provides injunctive relief that will benefit all the company's employees and future applicants."

A spokesman for Altec, which provides products and services to the electric utility, telecommunications and contractor markets, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Experts say religious discrimination claims in the workplace are expected to be a growing problem for employers.

Judy Greenwald writes for Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management's Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers.

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Obama’s EEOC Nominee: Society Should ‘Not Tolerate Private Beliefs’ That ‘Adversely Affect’ Homosexuals

Monday, January 18, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

Chai R. Feldblum, a law professor at Georgetown University Law School, has been nominated by President Obama to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity COmmission. (Photo from Georgetown Law Web site)

(CNSNews.com) - Chai Feldblum, the Georgetown University law professor nominated by President Obama to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has written that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious beliefs, that may negatively affect homosexual “equality.”

Feldblum, whose nomination was advanced in a closed session of the Senate Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on December 12, published an article entitled “Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion” in the Brooklyn Law Review in 2006.

“Just as we do not tolerate private racial beliefs that adversely affect African-Americans in the commercial arena, even if such beliefs are based on religious views, we should similarly not tolerate private beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] people,” the Georgetown law professor argued.

Feldblum’s admittedly “radical” view is based on what she sees as a “zero-sum game” between religious freedom and the homosexual agenda, where “a gain for one side necessarily entails a corresponding loss for the other side.”

“For those who believe that a homosexual or bisexual orientation is not morally neutral, and that an individual who acts on his or her homosexual orientation is acting in a sinful or harmful manner (to himself or herself and to others), it is problematic when the government passes a law that gives such individuals equal access to all societal institutions,” Feldblum wrote.

“Conversely, for those who believe that any sexual orientation, including a homosexual or bisexual orientation, is morally neutral, and that an individual who acts on his or her homosexual or bisexual orientation acts in an honest and good manner, it is problematic when the government fails to pass laws providing equality to such individuals.”

Feldblum argues that in order for “gay rights” to triumph in this “zero-sum game,” the constitutional rights of all Americans should be placed on a “spectrum” so they can be balanced against legitimate government duties.

All beliefs should be equal, regardless of their source, Feldblum says. “A belief derived from a religious faith should be accorded no more weight—and no less weight—than a belief derived from a non-religious source.” According to Feldman, the source of a person’s belief – be it God, spiritual energy, or the five senses – “has no relevance.”

'Identity liberty' versus 'belief liberty'

Feldblum does recognize that elements of the homosexual agenda may infringe on Americans’ religious liberties. However, Feldblum argues that society should “come down on the side” of homosexual equality at the expense of religious liberty. Because the conflict between the two is “irreconcilable,” religious liberty -- which she also calls "belief liberty" -- must be placed second to the “identity liberty” of homosexuals.

“And, in making the decision in this zero sum game, I am convinced society should come down on the side of protecting the liberty of LGBT people,” she wrote.

“Protecting one group’s identity liberty may, at times, require that we burden others’ belief liberty. This is an inherent and irreconcilable reality of our complex society,” Feldblum wrote.

“But in dealing with this conflict, I believe it is essential that we not privilege moral beliefs that are religiously based over other sincerely held core, moral beliefs. Laws passed pursuant to public policies may burden the belief liberty of those who adhere to either religious or secular beliefs.”

The full Senate must now vote on Feldblum's nomination, but a date for that vote has not yet been set.

As an EEOC commissioner, Feldblum would rule on cases involving alleged violations of federal employment law, including gender, age, and race discrimination.

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Source:http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/59965

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