In Dr. T v. Alexander-Scott, (D RI, Jan. 7, 2022), a Rhode Island federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction in a free exercise challenge to a Rhode Island Department of Health regulation requiring all health care workers to be vaccinated against COVID. The Regulation contains a narrow medical exemption, but no religious exemption. The court (which had previously denied a temporary restraining order) concluded that the regulation is both neutral and generally applicable. The court said in part:
The Regulation’s medical exemption serves the state’s principal purpose of protecting public health. A failure to exempt the limited number of individuals whose health a vaccine may jeopardize would be counterproductive to that goal to the extent of illogicality. There is no suggestion of a discriminatory bias against religion.
The court also concluded that since the regulation is silent as to religious exemptions, it does not preclude compliance with the reasonable accommodation requirements of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
