A MOCO Schools Employee Filed A Lawsuit Against The District Over Its Vaccine Mandate

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — Montgomery County Public Schools is facing a lawsuit from an unnamed employee over its policy of requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for all school employees.

The employee said that he is a Christian who objects to getting the vaccine because of its "usage of aborted fetal cells in the testing, creation and manufacturing of the COVID-19 vaccine."

Fetal cell lines from two abortions performed in the 1970s and 1980s were used in order to test and develop the vaccines, but there are no fetal cells in the vaccine itself, according to LA County Public Health, Nebraska Medicine, and UCLA Health.

MCPS allows employees to apply for an exemption for medical reasons, but religious exemptions are not considered. Patch reached out to MCPS for comment and will update this story if we hear back.

The John Doe is asking a judge to block the district from enforcing its mandate. The Center for American Liberty, a nonprofit that says it is committed to protecting civil liberties, is representing the man.

"The Vaccine Mandate, on its face and as applied, impermissibly requires Doe to choose between, on the one hand, abandoning his sincerely held religious beliefs and remaining employed or, on the other hand, maintaining his sincerely held religious beliefs and having his employment terminated, and the consequent irreparable harmed caused thereby," the lawsuit says.

The employee is an administrative employee, not a teacher, and has his own office with a door that closes, the lawsuit says. He is married with several children who are homeschooled, and his salary makes up more than two-thirds of the family's income, according to the lawsuit. He says that losing his job at MCPS — where he had planned to stay for the rest of his career — would hurt him financially and he would suffer "emotional and reputational harm."

"If Doe adheres to his sincerely held religious belief that obtaining a COVID-19 vaccine would be a sin, he will be terminated for failing to comply with the Vaccine Mandate," the lawsuit says.

The County is in the midst of proposing a vaccine mandate for all employees on the county's payroll. Councilmembers Will Jawando and Hans Riemer brought a bill introducing it on Tuesday, but union leaders and County Executive Marc Elrich responded with criticism of the idea.