What Did They Expect ?

Today I read about two separate legal decisions that give me hope. In each case one wonders, “what did they expect?”

First from the Epoch Times:

In Illinois a U.S. judge approved a multimillion-dollar settlement on Dec. 19 for workers who were fired by an Illinois health care system for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

U.S. District Judge John Kness, issued verbal approval for the settlement during a hearing, lawyers for Liberty Counsel and NorthShore University Healthsystem said. 

Like many health care systems, NorthShore imposed a vaccine mandate on employees in 2021.

NorthShore told workers that they could file a request for a religious exemption using a form that said the worker in question needed to provide “a description of my sincerely held religious principle or practice that guides my objection to receiving the required vaccination.” Northshore explicitly instructed applicants to not fill out lengthy answers.

NorthShore initially approved some of the exemption requests but then reversed the decisions and denied “all or virtually all of them,” according to filings from the plaintiffs. Officials said the employees failed to meet the standard for religious exemptions.

“Instead of engaging Plaintiffs in good faith, NorthShore denied Plaintiffs’ religious exemption requests en masse, providing nothing more than copy and paste responses, informing them that they lacked ‘evidence-based criteria,’ whatever that means,” one filing reads. “By failing to engage any of the Plaintiffs and its numerous employees with religious objections in good faith, NorthShore had no way to know whether an acceptable accommodation might have been appropriate. The only responses received by Plaintiffs and NorthShore’s employees were one-size-fits-all blanket denials.”

Whereas I can understand the concern of any health care system about employees being vaccinated, the en masse total disregard of possible religious objections is not acceptable.

The second legal decision is from a different type of legal case.

The background from Blazemedia:

In November 2016, three students attending the liberal arts school Oberlin College were involved in a scuffle in Gibson’s Bakery. The son, Allyn Gibson, confronted three students for stealing wine. The students accused Allyn Gibson of racial profiling and assaulting them.

When police arrived at the scene, they observed Allyn Gibson on the ground, surrounded by the three students, who were punching and kicking him.

Following the tense incident, Oberlin College staff and students protested outside the bakery and encouraged patrons to boycott the business. The school’s vice president and dean of students distributed flyers that claimed the Gibson family had a “long account of racial profiling and discrimination.”

The college also provided protesters with food and other supplies to support their rallying effort.

In September, the bakery owners told the New York Post, “A week after the incident, the school canceled all of our standing orders. … The school put out a statement that implied that this wasn’t an isolated incident.

“Our business from the students themselves and administrators … dried up completely. And the students kept showing up to protest,” the family added.

Even though the three accused students eventually pleaded guilty to theft, the bakery’s reputation had already suffered a devastating blow.

“Our business from the students themselves and administrators … dried up completely. And the students kept showing up to protest,” the family added. The family-owned bakery in Ohio recently won the lengthy defamation lawsuit against Oberlin College for falsely accusing the small business of racial profiling. The award … $36 million!

In this case the liberal Oberlin College got what it deserved. One might ask, “what did they expect?”

Interestingly, the response of Oberlin college after the award was some drivel about the “justice system.” Even though the initial three wine thieves owned up, and came clean, Oberlin College apparently still doesn’t see the ruination of a family business because of their lies and their subsequent vindictive response as wrong. Hopefully, when the college pays out the $36 million, a lightbulb will go on! Personally I wonder if the school’s Vice President and Dean of students are still employed by Oberlin.

12/29/22