Agency Finds Discrimination Against Catholic Priest At NIH

Last week the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board decided Heffernan v. Department of Health and Human Services, (Feb. 23, 2007), concurring with EEOC findings that a Roman Catholic chaplain at an NIH clinical center had been discriminated against on the basis of his religion. (Press release.) The EEOC decision, Heffernin v. Leavitt, (Jan. 26, 2007), found that Father Heffernan had been removed from his chaplain's position in retaliation for his objections to the NIH's multi-faith chaplaincy that required him to lead religious services of other faiths as well as his own. It concluded that while the priest's discharge was said to be for failure to comply with training certification requirement, in fact that was a pretext for discrimination and retaliatory animus. The EEOC decision found a number of instances of expressed animosity toward Catholics by Heffernan's supervisor at NIH.