By Corinne Hogseth
Employee unions were originally established to allow employees to collectively bargain with their employers for better wages and safer working conditions. Oddly, the Acton Boxborough Education Association, aka the AB teachers’ union, has decided that instead of protecting its members from unreasonable and possibly risky employer demands, to join forces with the Acton Boxborough Regional School District to mandate vaccines for all educators. This is regardless of natural immunity from prior infection, personal beliefs or personal risk assessment. With a reported 90% of teachers already vaccinated, a mandate hardly seems necessary. So let’s call this what it is – an ideological purity test, an opportunity to purge educators who don’t hew to the illiberal narrative spewed throughout our schools and our community.
In order to pass constitutional muster, such mandates must allow for medical and religious exemptions, as long as such exemptions do not impose undue burdens on the employer. Again, nearly 90% of teachers and eligible students have been vaccinated. If they believe in the vaccine, then they shouldn’t worry about the 10% who have made the personal decision to not get vaccinated. These individuals and families have made the decision to take their chances with the virus, and private, personal medical decisions should be respected, not vilified.
It has come to my attention that teachers seeking religious exemptions are being asked a series of personally invasive and legally dubious questions. They include:
- Are there any other medication, vaccines or medical procedures that conflict with your sincerely held religious beliefs. If yes, please describe.
- Have you received other vaccines at any time? If yes, please list.
- Can you provide a letter from a member of the clergy in your religious that explains the religious conflict with COVID-19 vaccines?
- If you are asking for a vaccine exemption based on a sincerely held religious belief, please indicate the religion.
- Please describe the specific conflict that your religious has with obtaining the COVID-19 vaccine.
- How long have you been a member of this religion?
- Can you describe some specific milestones or other evidence that you have participated in this religion? This could include marriage certificate or other documentation of milestones.
I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure demanding this information is illegal. I don’t need to be a lawyer to know it’s obnoxiously intrusive and intended to dissuade people from seeking an exemption from what they view as an unreasonable mandate that goes against their personal beliefs and could even jeopardize their own health.
Most of us got our vaccines as kids, the decisions to do so made by our parents. One can come by their religious beliefs at any time. And we’ve all learned more about vaccines than we probably ever wanted to, and certainly this knew knowledge may impact our choices about this and other medical interventions.
Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “religious beliefs include theistic beliefs (i.e. those that include a belief in God) as well as non-theistic moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.” One need not belong to any church or organized religion. Atheists can and do obtain religious exemptions.
Instead of completing this ridiculous questionnaire, send an email that says something like this:
“I do hereby assert that the immunization would be contrary to my sincerely held religious beliefs. Therefore, I shall be exempt from the COVID-19 vaccination mandate and shall be permitted to continue my employment as usual. This is pursuant to my right to refuse the COVID-19 vaccination on the statutory grounds of “religious beliefs.””
Consider including a reference to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as worded above.
Outside of some healthcare settings and the military, there is no precedent for adult vaccine mandates. Most COVID-19 vaccine mandates allow for testing as an alternative to getting the shot. Of course, because this is not really about the safety of our students or staff, AB did not include reasonable accommodations for those who choose not to take a vaccine that was rushed through the development and approval processes at unprecedented speed and in a highly politicized environment. The CDC has acknowledged that the vaccine does not stop transmission. How could people not question the safety and efficacy of this shot?
A group of New York City teachers filed and won a temporary injunction against the vaccine mandate imposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in August. The basis of their lawsuit is that this mandate “violates the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution, which provides no State can “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In imposing a mandate with no opt-out through testing, teachers are at risk of losing their livelihoods, tenure and health benefits without due process as required by the 14th Amendment.
Don’t we all have at least one or two teachers that we still remember, decades later, as having had a major influence on our education? For me, that teacher is Mrs. Rupert at Sheridan Elementary School in St. Paul. She recognized how bored I was in class. She gave me extra math homework to keep my mind busy. Her husband made a loom for me (that I still have!) to keep my hands busy. As an adult, I have two engineering degrees, an MBA and have worked in finance for 25 years. Nantucket lightship baskets that I made are on display throughout my house. I look back to that teacher I had at the age of eight as the one who guided me in a direction that best suited my strengths and my needs.
Here’s the point of my trip down memory lane: purging teachers who think and behave differently from the majority can have severe implications on our students, current and future. We need teachers who act and think differently from the masses. From an evolutionary perspective, it’s like natural selection – remove individuals with certain character traits from the population and that population will never be the same.
Again, I’m not a lawyer. But I know this mandate is not only unreasonable, it’s wrong. Please fight. Find each other and band together. Vaccinated teachers – you should be standing with your colleagues fighting this mandate, because it will certainly lead to future mandates. But the independent thinkers who fought this mandate won’t be around to help you fight the one that you don’t like.
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Ms Higgins, Life long Democrat or not, I don’t think there’s much point in further dialog when you resort to sexist insults. I must admit I’m surprised given your stance on dividing people by race and gender.
Race? Expound, if you don’t mind. I truly don’t understand what you mean by that.
But, you lead me to my next thorn about these mandates. They disproportionately segregate people of color who for myriad reason do not choose the vaccine and also largely were conferred durable natural immunity by working through the pandemic. That deeply troubles me, especially the idea of diverse school children missing school. It’s chilling.
Mr. Symonds, Thanks for the mansplain on Jacobsen. I’d remind you that it’s sandwiched between Plessy and Deb’s as far as flawed precedents. Maybe you can explain those to me, too…
I worry about overreach by both parties and am a longtime Democrat. I’m not sure how I’m barking up a wrong tree, so to speak. I wish you could debate without condescension, it would be more fun and in the spirit of learning, possible tweaking one’s own made up mind. I love to change my mind.
Here are two cases I read about recently in the news, just for starters.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/george-mason-univ-caves-ncla-185300624.html
https://apnews.com/article/sports-health-religion-education-coronavirus-pandemic-d465bf9fc160ff3c8a7b471edeaea7fd
You are absolutely right, you are not a lawyer. The federal courts including the Supreme Court have declined to block New York’s vaccine mandate.
The Union has a responsibility to all its members not just a handful. They pushed teachers up the queue for vaccines because their members believed they were in an unsafe environment. Now it seems perfectly reasonable that same membership demands all of their colleagues are vaccinated.
As for the religious exception. That’s simply being abused. Several states have removed the religious exception for vaccines already. There is no constitutional issue. No main stream religion holds a position against vaccination, so it seems reasonable to question the assertion. Are the questions being asked any more intrusive than the ones we ask conscientious objectors to military service?
At the end of the day, there is no difference between a teacher and any other employee. All over the country businesses are bringing in vaccine mandates or punitive policies to encourage vaccination. They are doing it to protect their employees, customers and reputation. What company wants to be known as a Covid spreader? This is being done with the support of the vast majority of employees. It’s all perfectly legal and if it’s good enough for the rest of us, it’s good enough for the teachers.
Actually, Jeremy, I can give you several instances where the courts have backed down if you’d like. Also, OSHA wasn’t designed for this purpose and the overreach in this instance could be truly frightening if used by, let’s say, a Donald Trump, to engineer punitive practices to punish women who need contraceptives or need abortions. Overreach in either direction should be examined carefully.
I’d love to see any vaccine cases that you can cite that overturn Jacobson vs Massachusetts. That’s the long standing precedent on the legality of vaccine mandates.
Most companies were introducing vaccine mandates well before Biden announced the use of OSHA. They are facing more pressure from the vaccinated that the unvaccinated. So OSHA’s largely irrelevant, overreach or not. If you think it has any impact on Trump’s behavior, you are barking up the wrong tree. I’d be more worried about his thugs who invaded Congress on January 6th. That was just a practice run for version of the burning of the Reichtag.
Hi Bill, I am a believer in vaccinations and still believe people have the right to choose what’s best for their body. We know someone who has been very vaccine-injured by the covid vaccine and I am worried that medicine for masses is a bad idea. We know a neurologist who just died of Covid after being double jabbed. I would be more in favor if it stopped infection and transmission. It might be good for you to look at populations like Harvard and Duke (and while we are at it, Iceland and Israel and Vermont) for exploding covid infections with 90+ percent vaxx rates. Does that give you any pause? It sure did for me. Also, you may not have young sons but the myocarditis risks (and the fact that other countries are only asking for one shot and recognizing natural immunity) are real and scary. COVID is scary, too. But, alas, why the decision is personal if it doesn’t limit infection and transmission.
Just wondering. Is there a single person who visits this place called box5769.temp.domains who thinks that we should all be vaccinated unless medically excluded for reasonable consideration?
The responses to my comments here have been ridiculous and embarrasing. Yet I am the only rational Acton resident who has responded so far.
Anyone else care to comment? Or is this just the local version of InfoWars?
When reasonable people don’t respond to the dangers of such… chaos prevails. People die. Needlessly.
I haven’t followed the NBA in years, so I had never heard of Jonathan Isaac. I was pointed to this 9-minute press conference (embedded inside the article that the link points to). Juxtapose the calm, confident, reasonable, articulate, live-and-let-live approach of this young man with, say, Governor Kathy Hochul of New York where she will actually fire thousands of unvaccinated medical workers today (people who have worked in Covid environments for 18 months, and most of whom have already had Covid !!!).
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/unvaxxed-nba-player-calls-fake-news-on-rolling-stone-report-that-he-was-brainwashed-by-trump-videos/ar-AAOVe9x
Two radically different worlds. I know which one I yearn for.
I did not mention anything of the sort. I was referring (in passing) to doctors who claimed that they successfully treated patients with these 2 medications. I have no clue if the medications work or not (according to Bret Weinstein who took Ivermectin, the data is currently noisy and more data in the coming months will help shed more light). I am not a medical doctor. My point is about censoring and de-platforming doctors who don’t toe the line. As an aside, and it doesn’t prove anything, both these medications are being widely used around the world as prophylactics (the hospital in Detroit became briefly famous because the Democrat state rep recovered after her doctor gave her HXQ with zinc or something – he claims high success rates – and I know firsthand from a doctor in India that this preventive treatment is routine – just not politically allowed in America).
Look how closed-minded you are – you are more concerned about ideological satisfaction than allowing the medical profession to do what it has been doing forever. Neither you nor I know if they work or not – scratch that, you definitely know that they don’t work, on a level of knowing that the Earth is not flat. Like I said in my last paragraph of the previous post, you know that you know the answer, and doctors who resist the talking points of Fauci and the CDC (effectively driving their treatment underground) must be flat Earthers.
The thrust of my response to you is about the dictatorial glee you (and the illiberal left in general) take in shoving your solutions down other people’s throats. But in trying to find something to respond with, and to distract from the main point, you misquote me on two specific medications. You are not interested in understanding the diverse reasons why people beg to differ. You are more like the embodiment of the Party apparatchik so eloquently described by Solzhenitsyn – thinking is not allowed, just do what you have been told.
Bill,
While we are at it, we could also, to protect the public at large, take inspiration from Mayor Bloomberg and not just mandate lower sugar and salt, but also regular exercise, proper diet, etc. Strictly in terms of numbers, obesity, heart disease, diabetes & cancer extract an enormous toll on our economy and well-being, and “science” would indicate that regular reporting to the neighborhood commissar would ensure improved health outcomes. (Saddam Hussein used to mandate weight loss goals to his overweight cabinet members). To use your own language, “diet and exercise mandates are common sense. Drop the politics and get with the program”. End of my semi-facetiousness, but it’s not hard to see how one precedent builds upon another till you have outsourced too many of your thoughts to others and are quite used to being an obedient sheep.
First, there are gradations of diseases. Some, like smallpox, used to have a 30% fatality rate, and most people voluntarily took the vaccine (mandate or not) around the world until we finally eradicated it. Similarly with polio and tetanus – with or without mandates, the voluntary vaccination rate would be enormously high. With things like influenza or shingles, with a significantly lower death rate, and no vaccine mandate thankfully, people (with their doctor) decide whether to get the shot or not. Covid-19 is midway between the two extremes but much closer to the latter. In fact I think the death rate for those below 40 is less than 0.003%. For the really old, it is about 3%. So even though the survival rate for this group is 97%, most seniors voluntarily lined up a year ago to get their shots. People are not stupid, and they should be viewed as adults who can make their own risk assessment. We do that all the time in any number of activities, including while driving to get the shot.
But let’s look at the various reasons for not getting the shots. First, the memory of the Tuskegee experiment has made many blacks hesitant to get the vaccine, and an interesting dynamic is unfolding, where BLM is opposing these mandates (and other restrictions on visiting restaurants etc.) as effectively racist.
Second, there is something different about this vaccine. All the other vaccines protect you from the disease AND do not make you the spreader after vaccination. For this one, you can get a breakout case, and also spread it to others. Granted, it is a small percentage, but the vaccine-hesitant can legitimately question why they should get the vaccine whose protection data is still being gathered around the world.
Third, people who have had Covid have (according to the Israel data) 27 times more immunity than the vaccinated (going from memory so actual numbers may be slightly off). They most certainly have legitimate reasons to not get the vaccine. Or are they also science-deniers ?
Fourth, this vaccine has been developed at breakneck speed and has saved countless lives (mainly among the elderly and other immune-compromised people like the very obese, severe diabetics, and those in chemotherapy). However, we don’t yet know the long-term effects (because time has a way of taking its own sweet time). There are early indications that the risk to young men of getting myocarditis is higher than their risk of death. What makes you want to force a healthy 20-year-old man to take the jab under these odds ? It is depressing that so many universities are mandating the vaccine for this group. They, of course, pay no price when something goes wrong, because their object is to force people to do what they may not want to do. Power is an aphrodisiac, as Henry Kissinger once said.
Fifth, this very lack of long-term data has caused many young women to postpone getting the vaccine because they are planning to have kids in the near future. Like the Tuskegee case, the memories of thalidomide have lingered. The fears may be overblown, but who are you to force them to do what they are reluctant to do, when you won’t pay any price if things hit the fan ?
As an aside, we know people with severe side effects. One man in Concord went blind in one eye for 2 weeks, but thankfully his vision is back. He adamantly will not be taking the booster. Another woman developed swollen lymph nodes to the extent that her doctor immediately wrote an exemption for her to not get the second shot (she was vaccine-hesitant but was forced to get vaccinated by her employer).
Now to the hesitancy created by politics.
Fauci and Biden repeatedly assured us that mandates are a bad idea and off the table (Fauci even invoked the word “freedom” which seems so hollow given his recent dictatorial bloviating). But of course that was in December when they were not yet in charge and could appear oh-so-freedom-loving.
Kamala Harris said she would not take the vaccine if Trump was president. Don’t know how vociferously you disagreed with her last year (I suspect you didn’t disagree), but now that the shoe is on the other foot, I don’t see any self-awareness from those who would have mightily resisted had Trump made any such mandate. Every headline would have mentioned Hitler, Nazi, fascist, in rotation.
My personal biggest concern is the collusion of Fauci and the White House with Facebook/Twitter/Google to only allow one “solution”. Silencing and account cancellations of doctors who disagree, who have concerns about the vaccine, who want to prescribe monoconal antibodies instead, or who have successfully used Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine, has been the most disheartening spectacle. Is is as though we went to a doctor and got diganosed with a serious illness, but were forbidden to get a second and third opinion, because the first doctor was a proponent of “science” and so any other opinion would be misinformation and in need of suppression. This is totalitarian science.
Finally, “science” is not a thing in itself. It is an endless process of discovery hand in hand with skepticism. Peer review, reproducibility, falsifiability, are part of this “2 steps forward, 1 step back” phenomenon of trial and error.
The true science deniers are (these days) firmly on the left. They know that only they know the answer, and want to shove it down everyone’s throat. My advice to the mandate Nazis: think of everyone as adults who are free to make their own decisions and make their own mistakes. The current environment is fueling nothing but resentment and rage.
You actually mentioned Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine as successful treatments. And the Earth is flat. And the sun revolves around it. Got it.
As always, Mr. Alstrom does not contribute any factual information or engage in a civil, intelligent debate. His pathetic response is just insults, intolerance, and fake outrage.
Charlie Kadlec
Hi Charlie,
My outrage and the outrage of most people I know is hardly fake. It is quite real and growing stronger daily. I think I am a very civil person who has expressed an intelligent opinion. I have not attacked an individual. And you?
And yes, we are quite intolerant of those who would endanger our kids and friends during a pandemic.
Factual information: In those areas where vaccination rates are low Covid has raged out of control. States that have not pursued vaccination aggressively now have hospitals overwhelmed, health care professionals disgusted and facing choices about who to deny care for.
Note: I did not direct an insult your way. Just stating the obvious.
Mr. Alstrom,
Corinne’s article is about forcing all teachers and other AB school employees to be vaccinated. Your response calls her article “poppycock”, devotes a paragraph to “science deniers” (who did you have in mind ?), dismisses religious exemptions as “ridiculous”, all in what you claim is “application of science”.
The science, Mr. Alstrom, is that vaccination has no effect on the transmissibility of COVID 19 and its derivatives. If a person is infected, he/she can infect others whether he/she has been vaccinated or not. The argument that teachers must be vaccinated to protect the kids is false.
Given the brief experience with all the available vaccines forcing employees to be vaccinated by the threat of job loss is a political decision which has zero benefit to coworkers or students but has the potential of major medical problems, only now being discovered, especially for pregnant women and nursing mothers. Or is that also “poppycock” Mr. Alstrom ?
Charlie Kadlec
A vaccine mandate is right and very reasonable. A vaccine mandate is common sense. Various vaccines have been required for schools, for the military, and for travel to certain countries – forever. Enough of this poppycock.
This has only become political because “science deniers” have taken it on as a weapon. The ultra right wing platform has been so weak and anti-people for so long, they have latched onto conspiracies and made-up medical opinions to rally those who don’t really read the facts. And the anti-vaxx movement has one other feature: it opposes Democrats who, of course, are “evil demons”. The anti-vaxx movement is just another (ignorant) way to “own the libs”.
A vaccine mandate is simply the application of science. It protects the public health. There is no “freedom” to endanger others as an unvaccinated person. The only exemption for vaccination should be a medical condition that is certified by a physician. Then, that justifiably unvaccinated person if employed or is studying anywhere should be tested for Covid regularly (let health care professionals determine the frequency).
As to religious exemptions? Ridiculous. Believe what you want when it comes to spirituality. That’s our right in a free society. But “religion” or some other fantastical belief does not provide cover for endangering my grandchildren in a school setting…or the population in general.
We who believe in modern medicine and all the gifts of 21st Century science are fed up. Our patience is gone. The Covid Vaccine is saving millions of lives. The anti-vaxxers are overwhelming hospitals, begging for care as they waste away. They are filling beds that can’t be used for the next heart attack patient. Emergency health care is being rationed! Why? Because folks have been hoodwinked and lied to by politicians using the anti-vaxx movement as a political football. Enough.
If your religion suggests that it is OK to endanger teachers, staff and students…please find a new religion that embraces concern for others. Enough of this poppycock. Get the damn shot and help others live.
Our society is chock full of “mandates” for the protection of the public at large. That’s called being an informed, science-based society. AKA civilization. Vaccine mandates are common sense. Drop the politics and get the shot.