A school psychologist who said she was fired by the Newton Public Schools in 2022 due to her refusal to receive a COVID-19 vaccine is suing the school district, saying the firing violated her First Amendment rights.

Sydni O’Connell claims the vaccine requirement goes against her Greek Orthodox Christian religion, because the church opposes using embryonic cells to conduct
medical research.

The suit, which was filed in US District Court in Boston on Jan. 24, says that Newton Public Schools “unlawfully and wrongly denied” her request for a religious vaccine exemption. Her request was denied on December 6, 2021, and her position was terminated on January 26, 2022. She had been employed by Newton Public Schools since 2017.

O’Connell argues that other employees received exemptions, and that Newton Public Schools is legally prohibited from discriminating against employees on the basis of their religious belief. In her initial request for an exemption, O’Connell said that the Book of Matthew reports that Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” and that she also does not get flu vaccines. She said that she believes it was God’s plan for her to get COVID-19 in the summer of 2021 and therefore get natural immunity.

She also wrote that she doesn’t need vaccines because she eats healthily and exercises and that “God helps those who help themselves,” which is a saying that is not Christian but likely originated out of classical paganism and was popularized by the deist Benjamin Franklin. None of this is a mainstream Greek Orthodox Christian viewpoint.

Archbishop Elpidophoros, who is the head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, received a COVID-19 vaccine in the summer of 2021. He said “[g]rateful to the brilliant scientists and health care workers who, through hard work and by the Grace of God, produce and deliver life-saving vaccines. We have a moral obligation to make vaccines available to everyone in the world.”

Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who oversees many Eastern Orthodox churches including the Greek Orthodox, has also expressed his support for vaccination.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has said there are no valid religious exemptions for its faithful for any vaccines, including COVID-19.

O’Connell’s lawsuit also says that Newton Public Schools should not have been requiring employees to receive “experimental medical treatments” against their will. Her lawsuit even claims that by requiring COVID-19 vaccines for its employees, Newton Public Schools may have violated the Nuremberg Code, the 1947 legal document listing ethical principles for human scientific research created in the wake of Nazi experimentation on prisoners.

O’Connell is asking for two million dollars in compensatory damages and one million dollars in punitive damages, as well as attorneys fees. She asked for a trial by jury. She is being represented by Richard Chambers, a lawyer from Lynnfield who has represented many Boston-area residents in COVID-19 vaccine related job loss lawsuits, which are regularly dismissed by federal judges.