Free Republic

A federal court has sided with college athletes seeking a religious exemption from a university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, preventing the school from enforcing the mandate against the plaintiffs. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sided with a group of 16 student-athletes at Western Michigan University, upholding a lower court decision finding that the school violated their First Amendment rights by denying their requests for religious exemptions from the requirement that all student-athletes take the coronavirus vaccine. The decision noted that “in some cases, the university denied the student-athlete’s application” for a religious exemption...

Sixteen unvaccinated athletes won another round in their legal battle to play sports, despite Western Michigan University’s mandate that all of its inter-collegiate athletes get the COVID-19 vaccination shot. In a unanimous published decision issued Oct. 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio, held that the university violated the athletes’ First Amendment rights. All 16 athletes had filed for religious exemptions, which, according to the court, the university “ignored or denied.” The court stated: “The university put plaintiffs to the choice: Get vaccinated, or stop fully participating in intercollegiate sports. By conditioning the privilege...