On Tuesday morning, 36 airmen in the active-duty Air Force, the Air Force Reserve, and the Air National Guard filled a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Omaha, Nebraska, challenging the legality of President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on service members in the Air Force. It is one of the largest lawsuits against the military mandates that has been filed to date.
The airmen have all applied for a religious exemption to the mandate because taking the vaccine violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs. They are seeking a judgment that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) of 1993, as well as the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They are also seeking an injunction to stop the Air Force from discharging them and others in the Air Force who have requested religious exemptions from the mandate. The airmen are represented by lawyers from the Alliance for Free Citizens (where I am general counsel) and the America First Policy Institute.
The airmen are almost all stationed at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, or McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas. They add their suit to a few others brought by members of the military. Most notably, a group of Navy SEALs won a preliminary injunction in federal court in Texas that was sustained by the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals last week.
