New York teachers who lost their jobs for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine just won their lawsuit and got their jobs back on Wednesday.
State Supreme Court Judge Ralph Porzio ruled in his 22-page opinion that the decision to fire 10 employees of the New York City Education Department and deny them religious exemptions during the COVID-19 pandemic was “arbitrary and capricious.”
“This Court sees no rational basis for not allowing unvaccinated classroom teachers in amongst an admitted population of primarily unvaccinated students,” Porzio wrote in his ruling.
“As such, the decision to summarily deny the classroom teachers amongst the Panel Petitioners based on an undue hardship, without any further evidence of individualized analysis, is arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable. As such, each classroom teacher amongst the Panel Petitioners is entitled to a religious exemption from the Vaccine Mandate,” he continued.
The court also ruled that the 10 public school employees were entitled to their positions as well as back pay in salaries, perks, pensions, and seniority.
The COVID-19 vaccination mandate for employees of public schools in New York City only ended on February 10. The mandate began on October 1, 2021.
The judge initially turned down the petitioners’ request to turn their case into a class action suit. Seven other petitioners were also requesting an exemption along with their jobs back with back pay, but were also denied. One of those denied was a group called Teachers for Choice, which opposes forced vaccination.
“Although the petitioners’ overall position is that the citywide panel did not provide relief to the vast majority of initial DOE applicants, and specifically that these petitioners did seek that review, the record before this court is insufficient to make any determination as to those claims,” Porzio wrote.
Porzio also said that the vaccination mandate for public school teachers was arbitrary and unreasonable, citing New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to scrap the mandate for sports and entertainers.
Court documents show that the city argued that “granting reasonable accommodation to classroom teachers could not be done without preventing a risk to the vulnerable and still primarily unvaccinated student population.”
