Mayo will pay $50,000 to settle federal complaint over denied COVID-19 vaccine exemption

Jeremy Olson, Star Tribune on Sep 24, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — Mayo Clinic is paying $50,000 to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit, filed after the Rochester-based health system declined to exempt a security guard from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds.

The health system also agreed to accommodate future requests for religious exemptions from vaccine mandates, except in cases of “undue hardship,” and to refrain from retaliation against workers who request them, according to a statement Thursday from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“An employer should ordinarily assume that an employee’s request for religious accommodation is based on a sincerely held religious belief, unless it has an objective basis for further inquiry,” said Christopher Lage, EEOC’s deputy general counsel.

Mayo’s mandate came in late 2021 as delta and omicron variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus produced fresh pandemic waves of COVID-19 illnesses that overwhelmed hospitals. Mayo leaders at the time argued the mandate was necessary to protect its patients with other complex medical needs from being infected.

The health system was among numerous businesses and medical providers that enacted mandates after COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, and it was particularly aggressive in enforcement. Mayo in early 2022 announced plans to release 700 workers who either didn’t receive COVID-19 shots or qualify for exemptions.

In the case of security guard Cody Schultz, court records indicate that Mayo doubted the religious argument that he was making for an exception. Schultz argued that he should qualify as a member an Assemblies of God church, which emphasizes the Pentecostal doctrine of “divine healing,” according to the initial complaint filed in 2025 against Mayo.

Schultz argued that faith helped him recover from COVID-19 in 2020 and that “if he died from the vaccine it would constitute suicide and undermine God’s faith,” according to the complaint. He offered to wear a mask to reduce the spread of the coronavirus and submit to COVID-19 testing to prove he was fit to work.

When his request was denied, Schultz got a COVID-19 vaccine to keep his job. Schultz didn’t immediately reply on Thursday to a request for comment.

Mayo also agreed in the settlement to adopt policies regarding religious accommodations and to train its human resources workers on how to apply them when reviewing requests.

In a statement on Thursday, the health system said it “maintains that its vaccination program was established in accordance with the law to protect the health and safety of staff, patients and communities, and it included a process to accommodate religious beliefs.”

Legal challenges increased nationwide after a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that raised the undue hardship standard that employers could use to deny religious accommodations to workers. The case centered on a postal worker’s religious request to avoid working on Sundays, but the precedent spread to challenges of vaccine mandates as well.

EEOC filed a case in fall 2023 against a division of Eden Prairie-based UnitedHealth Group for denying a religious exemption to its vaccine mandate for a remote worker.

That case is ongoing — with the EEOC stepping up challenges to vaccine mandates under President Donald Trump compared to his predecessor, Joe Biden. The former president had advocated for vaccine mandates for federal workers and contractors during the pandemic.

Minnesota recently surpassed 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including reinfections. But infections and hospitalization for COVID-19 have dropped well below pandemic levels.

COVID-19 hasn’t disappeared entirely, though. Sampling of wastewater shows an increase in COVID-19 levels in Minnesota following the July 4 holiday that will likely continue through the winter.

The state’s most recent update in May showed just more than 16% of eligible Minnesotans were up-to-date with their COVID-19 vaccinations, though that rate increased to 44% among elderly residents at greater risk for complications from infections.