Two former ESPN employees are suing the company in federal court over vaccine mandates they feel violate their religious freedoms, according to a report released Wednesday.
ESPN ex-producer Beth Faber and sideline reporter Allison Williams filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Connecticut on Wednesday, according to Deadline. The sports giant and its parent The Walt Disney Company are defendants in the suit.
Both women were fired by EPSN in late 2021 after they refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine, Deadline reported. Williams did not take the vaccine as she and her husband were trying to conceive their second child at the time, telling her Instagram followers that that was “so morally and ethically not aligned” with the mandatory vaccine requirements.
ESPN Reporter Who Resigned Over Vaccine Mandate Has New Job https://t.co/GJQjEqjedr
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 22, 2021
Faber spent more than 30 years working for ESPN before she was fired for refusing the vaccine, Deadline noted. She requested an exemption in June 2021 based on her religious beliefs, which was ultimately refused.
She claimed that a senior human resource specialist at ESPN told her that “maybe God has led you to a new career, when God closes a door, he opens another.” (RELATED: STUDY: Some Women’s Menstruation Changes After COVID-19 Vaccination)
“Forcing [the] plaintiffs to choose between continuation of their employment and a violation of their religious beliefs in order to retain their livelihoods imposes a substantial burden on plaintiffs’ ability to conduct themselves in accordance with their sincerely held religious beliefs,” their attorney, Christopher Dunn, wrote in the suit.