EEOC sides with Christian employee who says Kaiser fired her for refusing COVID vaccine

A California medical assistant is suing Kaiser Permanente after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found reasonable cause to believe the healthcare provider violated federal law by denying her request for a religious exemption to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Sarah Plath, a former medical assistant, filed a lawsuit on June 24 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging Kaiser violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California's Fair Employment and Housing Act by terminating her after she declined to receive a COVID-19 injection because of her Christian beliefs.

The suit describes Plath as “a devout and practicing Christian” whose faith is “the central part of her life and identity.”

Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on their sincerely held religious beliefs.

According to the suit, Plath believes the COVID-19 vaccines "utilize the aborted fetal cell lines during" their production and testing, making them "unethical" and morally unacceptable.

The suit also says she believes receiving the vaccine would violate her "sincerely held religious beliefs" and conviction that her body is "the Temple of the Holy Spirit" by introducing "potentially harmful substances" into it.  

Although Kaiser required employees to be vaccinated, the company initially allowed Plath to continue working by submitting to regular COVID-19 testing, which she complied with. 

While Kaiser initially approved Plath’s request for a religious accommodation to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in 2021, the company informed her that “additional information was needed to evaluate whether she had a sincerely held religious belief that precluded her from taking the COVID–19 vaccine.”

Kaiser asked Plath additional questions about her religious beliefs, after which the company informed her  that her request "does not meet the standards necessary for granting an exemption from obtaining any COVID-19 vaccine."

After Plath received the email denying her request for a religious exemption in late 2021, she was placed on unpaid leave. Plath was later informed that she had until Jan. 3, 2022, to provide proof of vaccination and was threatened with termination if she didn't comply. She was fired a week after the Jan. 3, 2022, deadline. 

Later that year, Plath filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC. Earlier this year, the agency informed her that it had found "reasonable cause to believe that violations of the statute(s) occurred with respect to some or all of the matters alleged in the charge," although it was unable to reach a voluntary settlement.

The lawsuit alleges Kaiser discriminated against Plath by failing to accommodate her sincerely held religious beliefs, treating her differently because of those beliefs and retaliating against her in violation of Title VII and California law.

It seeks a ruling declaring the termination of Plath unconstitutional as well as punitive damages, all costs associated with bringing suit, attorneys’ fees and any additional relief the court deems proper. 

“This case is about more than one employee losing her job,” said Advocates for Faith & Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Sam Kane in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

“It is about whether Americans can still live and work according to their sincerely held religious convictions without being punished by corporate gatekeepers. No employee should be allowed to force a faithful Christian to choose between her conscience and her livelihood — especially when reasonable accommodations were available.”

“Our Constitution and civil rights laws were written to restrain overreach and protect the individual," he added. "When large institutions trample the religious convictions of everyday Americans, we will stand in the gap and fight back.” 

Plath’s lawsuit comes a week after the EEOC announced in a statement that Kaiser Permanente reached a $358,000 settlement with the EEOC regarding 12 charges of discrimination filed over the company’s refusal to provide religious exemptions to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The settlement comes after an EEOC investigation determined that Kaiser likely violated Title VII. 

The EEOC alleged that Kaiser “questioned the sincerity of employees’ religious beliefs and failed to provide religious accommodations as appropriate to employees at various locations in several states.”

Although it mentioned that charges of discrimination were filed at “multiple” EEOC offices, the agency did not provide further details about the settlements. 

“Without admitting liability, Kaiser entered into conciliation agreements with the EEOC,” the EEOC stated. “The company confirmed completion of equal employment opportunity training on reasonable religious accommodations and installed processes to address reasonable religious accommodations made by employees in accordance with federal law. The EEOC will monitor compliance for the agreements’ one-year term.”

Christine Park-Gonzalez, director of the EEOC’s Los Angeles District, praised Kaiser for “enacting corrective measures that will have a lasting impact on workers seeking religious accommodations in the workplace."

She stressed that “Federal law requires that employers provide reasonable religious accommodations unless it poses an undue hardship that is substantial in the overall context of the employer’s business, and the EEOC will continue to enforce that all-important statute.”