NEW ORLEANS — Attorneys for a group of Navy SEALS and other Navy personnel who oppose mandatory COVID-19 vaccination on religious grounds want a federal appeals court to uphold their case against the Biden administration, even though the requirement was overturned.
The Pentagon formally dropped the requirement in January for a vote in December in Congress to end the mandate. Vaccination opponents, however, point out that commanders can still make decisions about how and whether to use unvaccinated troops, according to a memo signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last month.
In a case scheduled to appear in the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans Monday afternoon, government attorneys say the matter is moot. They want the appeals court to overturn injunctions blocking vaccination requirements and intend to have the entire case dismissed at a lower court.
Attorneys for unvaccinated Navy personnel argue in briefs to the 5th Circuit that Austin’s memo and other Department of Defense actions show the Navy still intends to treat unvaccinated personnel “as second-class citizens because of their religious beliefs.”
Government attorneys argue in their briefs that the policy is consistent with “well-established principles of judicial non-interference in core military decisions.”
The Navy SEALS filed their lawsuit in November 2021, detailing what they believe to be a cumbersome 50-step process for applying religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine. Her lawyers have called a “sham” with requests being “categorically denied”.
The Department of Defense denied the process was onerous, saying the Navy has a compelling interest in requiring vaccinations for personnel who often work for long periods in “confined spaces that are ripe breeding grounds for respiratory disease.”
In January last year, a federal judge in Texas barred the Navy from taking any action against the Navy plaintiffs because they were unvaccinated. A 5th Circuit panel denied the Biden administration’s request to block the judge’s order.
But the government won at least a temporary partial victory last March when the supreme court approved a “partial stay”. The order allowed the Navy to consider sailors’ vaccination status in decisions about deployment, deployment and other operational matters while the case is unfolding.
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