Employees who were denied a religious exemption from their government contractor employer’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate did not have a valid cause of action under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit’s ruling in Ciraci v. J. M. Smucker Co. serves as a useful reminder that Constitutional guarantees such as the free exercise of religion generally apply only to government action, and an employer’s status as a government contractor does not make it a government actor.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.