Plaintiffs Wanda Brandon and fifteen other current and former employees of the St. Louis Public School District sued the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis, Superintendent Kelvin Adams, and Chief Human Resources Officer Charles Burton in the Eastern District of Missouri raising claims of violations of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, Title VII religious discrimination, and the Missouri Human Rights Act. Before the court are Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on the Equal Protection claim, and Plaintiffs’ motion to exclude expert testimony.
Statement of Undisputed Facts
In fall 2021, the Board of Education adopted Policy 4624, requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 15, 2021, or obtain an approved exemption. The policy provided three types of exemptions: disability accommodation, religious exemption, and exemption for other medical reasons. Employees who failed to comply faced unpaid leave and potential termination, while those receiving exemptions were subject to twice-weekly COVID-19 testing.
The Board employed approximately 3,600 people and served between 19,000 and 21,000 students across more than 65 schools. Of the Board’s employees, approximately 300 requested exemption forms, with 189 requesting religious exemptions. Each of the sixteen remaining plaintiffs submitted religious exemption requests, citing various Christian, Islamic, and Pentecostal beliefs that conflicted with receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Many objected to the use of fetal cell lines in vaccine development or testing, while others cited beliefs about their bodies being temples of God.
The Board denied all 189 religious exemption requests in fall 2021, using virtually identical form letters. The denial letters stated that after balancing the constitutional obligation to provide free public education against individual religious rights, there was “insufficient information” to grant religious exemptions, and the “balance of competing constitutional interests weigh in favor of the rights of students ineligible to receive the vaccine.” The Board did not evaluate whether plaintiffs’ religious beliefs were sincerely held before denying their requests.
In contrast, the Board granted between 40 and 50 medical and disability exemptions. For medical exemptions, the Board engaged in an interactive process including one-on-one meetings and did not deny any requests where a medical doctor provided supporting documentation. Employees who received medical or disability exemptions continued working while undergoing twice-weekly testing.
The Board suspended tenured employees without pay after issuing Statements of Charges, while non-tenured employees were terminated. Between 100 and 127 employees who submitted religious exemption requests were suspended or terminated between October 2021 and January 2022. In January 2022, the Board reversed course and granted all previously denied religious exemption requests, citing changed circumstances including revised CDC guidance and FDA approval of booster shots for younger students. The Board invited terminated employees to return to work but did not provide back pay for the period of suspension or termination.
Legal Analysis
Expert Testimony Motion
The court partially granted Plaintiffs’ motion to exclude the expert testimony of Dr. Daniel Salmon, a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins. The court excluded Dr. Salmon’s opinions about anti-vaccine movements and stem cells, finding these topics irrelevant because Dr. Salmon admitted he knew nothing about the specific plaintiffs in the case. The court also excluded testimony about institutional “responsibility” to evaluate exemption requests as an improper legal opinion. However, the court allowed Dr. Salmon’s other testimony about COVID-19 threats, vaccine safety and efficacy, and vaccination mandates, finding these opinions sufficiently reliable and relevant.
Religiosity and Sincerity of Beliefs
The court found genuine disputes of material fact existed regarding whether plaintiffs held sincerely held religious beliefs that motivated their objections to the vaccination policy. Defendants argued that many plaintiffs’ objections were based on medical or scientific rather than religious grounds, but the court noted that beliefs can be both secular and religious, with constitutional protection extending to the overlapping area. The court rejected defendants’ challenges to specific plaintiffs’ sincerity, finding that perfect adherence to religious beliefs is not required and that struggling with one’s beliefs does not render them insincere.
Free Exercise Claim – Level of Scrutiny
The court determined that strict scrutiny rather than rational basis review applied to the Free Exercise claims. Defendants argued for rational basis review under two theories: Jacobson deference for public health measures and the Smith doctrine for neutral and generally applicable laws. The court rejected the Jacobson deference argument, noting that the Eighth Circuit in Heights Apartments had limited Jacobson’s application to the early pandemic period when immediate action was needed, which did not apply to Policy 4624 implemented with a two-month compliance period in fall 2021.
The court also found Policy 4624 was not generally applicable because it created a mechanism for individualized exemptions. Unlike the policy in We The Patriots USA, Inc. v. Hochul, which provided only objective medical exemptions, Policy 4624 allowed Burton to exercise discretion in granting or denying religious exemptions, making it subject to strict scrutiny under Fulton v. City of Philadelphia.
Free Exercise Claim – Strict Scrutiny Analysis
While acknowledging the Board’s compelling interests in education and stemming COVID-19 spread, the court found genuine disputes existed about whether Policy 4624 was narrowly tailored. The court noted that granting all 189 religious exemption requests while maintaining the 40-50 medical exemptions would have achieved a 93.1-93.4% employee vaccination rate. The Board failed to provide evidence that this rate, combined with twice-weekly testing for exempt employees, would have been insufficient to achieve their goals while a 95% rate would have succeeded.
The court found that the Board’s willingness to grant medical exemptions undermined its argument that no exceptions could be tolerated, and the arbitrary reversal of all denials in January 2022 suggested the original denials were not driven by genuine necessity.
Free Exercise Claim – Qualified Immunity
The court granted qualified immunity to individual defendants Adams and Burton, finding that the right to be free from COVID-19 vaccination mandates based on religious beliefs was not clearly established in October 2021. The legal landscape at that time, before the Eighth Circuit’s clarification in Heights Apartments, left room for reasonable officials to believe Jacobson deference might apply to their actions.
Equal Protection Claim – Similarly Situated Analysis
The court determined that whether plaintiffs were similarly situated to employees who received medical exemptions presented a genuine dispute of material fact for jury resolution. While acknowledging similarities (both groups posed equal COVID-19 transmission risks and sought identical accommodations of twice-weekly testing), the court found disputed facts regarding differences in group size, medical necessity, and barriers to obtaining exemptions that prevented summary judgment for either party.
Equal Protection Claim – Discriminatory Intent
The court found strong evidence of discriminatory intent based on the differential treatment between religious and medical exemption requests. Particularly compelling was testimony from Annamaria Lu, who reviewed exemption requests, explaining that medical exemptions were granted because people “ended up paralyzed” or had “allergies,” while religious exemptions were denied because they weren’t based on physical reasons. This suggested the Board elevated medical concerns over religious beliefs based on hostility to religion.
Equal Protection Claim – Qualified Immunity
The court granted qualified immunity to Adams and Burton on the Equal Protection claims, applying the same reasoning as for the Free Exercise claims that the rights were not clearly established in October 2021.
Title VII and MHRA Claims
The court found genuine disputes of material fact on plaintiffs’ failure-to-accommodate claims under both Title VII and the Missouri Human Rights Act. While plaintiffs established the elements of their claims (sincere religious belief conflicting with employment requirement, notice to employer, and discipline for noncompliance), the Board failed to prove its undue hardship defense.
The Board’s arguments about costs from quarantine requirements, contact tracing, and testing logistics were either unsupported by concrete evidence or failed to account for the specific impact of granting religious exemptions as opposed to having no vaccination policy at all. The Board provided no evidence of its operating costs or how accommodation costs would rise to an “excessive” or “unjustifiable” level as required under Groff v. DeJoy.
The court granted Plaintiffs’ motion to exclude portions of Dr. Daniel Salmon’s expert testimony, denied Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on the Equal Protection claim, granted Defendants Adams and Burton’s motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity for both Free Exercise and Equal Protection claims, and denied the Board’s motion for summary judgment on the Free Exercise, Equal Protection, Title VII, and Missouri Human Rights Act claims.
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