By Jill Erzen

A physician who lost his job over COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and two families whose children were pushed out of school over religious exemptions, told the Religious Liberty Commission this week that government policies punished people for being faithful to their beliefs.

Speaking Monday, psychiatrist Dr. Aaron Kheriaty described what happened after he challenged vaccine mandates while working at the University of California.

“If you stand up and start defending your religious liberty, then people want to literally shut you up and put a gag order on you,” Kheriaty told the commission.

President Donald Trump established the commission in May 2025. Members have been examining religious discrimination across multiple sectors. They plan to deliver policy recommendations to the president in July.

Monday’s hearing also addressed issues involving gender identity and medical interventions, foster care, abortion and end-of-life decisions. The final hearing is scheduled for April 13.

‘We can’t treat vaccines as though they’re some sort of sacred, untouchable cow’

Kheriaty said he was surprised when the University of California imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in 2021 without consulting the university’s medical ethics committee.

Kheriaty was director of the medical ethics program and sat on a committee responsible for vetting COVID-19 hospital policies across the school’s five campuses.

However, when the university adopted a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the committee “was not consulted,” according to Kheriaty.

He said he found that “puzzling” because the policy “was clearly going to be the most ethically controversial of all the COVID policies that the university was enacting.”

Kheriaty co-authored an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal arguing that university vaccine mandates were unethical. He later challenged the policy in federal court. The University of California fired him.

Kheriaty said the experience showed how fragile constitutional freedoms can become when governments treat medical policies as unquestionable.

“We can’t treat vaccines as though they’re some sort of sacred, untouchable cow,” he said. “Once something gets on the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s] recommended schedule, it’s therefore unassailable for all eternity. That’s just not how science works.”

He warned that attacks on religious liberty often lead to broader threats to free expression.

“The First Amendment seems to be a package deal,” Kheriaty said. “Once you go after that … free speech is the next target.” He added:

“I think the First Amendment stands or falls together. We have to defend religious liberty … but once you start undermining that fundamental right, you’re going to see other closely allied, closely related fundamental rights from free speech to the freedom of press, freedom of association.”

Kheriaty also discussed a lawsuit, now known as Murthy v. Missouri, challenging federal pressure on social media companies to censor critics of COVID-19 policies.

“We alleged … they were coercing social media companies, pressuring social media companies to censor disfavored information online.” The government is now settling the case, and “the government will be reprimanded for having done this,” he said.

Efforts to control debate in science and medicine ultimately harm both freedom and public health, he said.

“The attempt to control speech within science and medicine … is not only something that violates the First Amendment in many cases, but it’s also bad science and bad medicine.”

New York ‘treated me as though I was dangerous and sick’

For many families, the consequences of losing religious exemptions were immediate and personal.

Nancy Costine told commissioners that her daughters had attended school in New York with approved religious exemptions until 2019, when the state repealed the policy that had been in place for more than 50 years.

The repeal denied “26,000 children access to education, enrichment and services,” she said.

Her daughter, Isabella, was 7 years old when the state banned her from school grounds.

“Even though I am very healthy, the state treated me as though I was dangerous and sick,” Isabella said. “My school district wanted nothing to do with me.”

She told the commission the experience left lasting scars. She said:

“My sister and I felt alone. Misunderstood and forgotten. We began a life filled with stress, isolation and uncertainty. And I carry the effects to this day. Before, I was outgoing and it was easy for me to make friends. Now it is harder to make friends because it is hard to trust people. And I always feel that I will be judged.”

Costine said the family now drives three hours every day so the girls can attend a private school out of state. The financial toll has been enormous.

“I am unable to work full-time due to the commute costing us over a third of our household income,” she said. “Career advancement is impossible due to my lack of availability.”

Costine also questioned whether the policy was ever truly about public health.

She said a 2024 Freedom of Information Act request found about 35,000 students in New York City schools were either unvaccinated or missing records — far more than the roughly 26,000 students who had previously held religious exemptions.

“If this was about public health … where is the fervent desire to ferret out these children?” she asked.

Parents forced to choose between faith and education

In a letter submitted to the commission on Monday, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) warned that policies eliminating religious exemptions are forcing families into impossible choices.

“Across the country — and particularly in the four states that do not allow any form of religious accommodation — families are being forced to choose between adherence to their faith and their children’s access to education, extracurricular activities, and other public programs,” CHD CEO Mary Holland wrote.

Holland pointed to CHD’s ongoing lawsuit, CHD v. McDonald, which challenges New York’s vaccine mandate after the repeal of religious exemptions.

The policy allows other exemptions, including medical waivers and exceptions for adult students or school employees, while denying accommodations for religious objections.

“These inconsistencies reveal that the policy does not operate as a narrowly tailored public health measure, but instead places the burden of enforcement primarily on parents seeking to raise children in accordance with their faith,” Holland wrote.

She also highlighted federal legislation introduced by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) — the GRACE Act — that if passed, would protect religious vaccine exemptions nationwide.

Holland asked: “How many more children have been excluded, injured, or silenced simply because their faith no longer fits state policy?”

‘I pray to go to school like others’

The impact of those policies was evident in testimony from Karen Amigon of Los Angeles and her 7-year-old daughter, Riley Grace.

In 2015, California passed a bill effectively eliminating personal belief exemptions, including religious objections.

“Because of this law, my daughter is not allowed to attend public or private school in our home state because of religious beliefs regarding vaccination,” Amigon told commissioners. She now homeschools her daughter.

“But as a single mother who must work full time to provide for my child, homeschooling also comes with very real challenges,” she said.

Her daughter’s testimony was brief.

“I pray to go to school like others,” Riley Grace told the panel.

‘The child is not the mere creature of the state’

Commission member Cardinal Timothy Dolan emphasized that parental authority over children has long been recognized in U.S. law.

He cited a 1925 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court declaring, “The child is not the mere creature of the state.”

Witnesses warned that vaccine mandates without religious accommodations threaten that principle by shifting medical decision-making from families to government institutions.

Costine told commissioners that lawmakers dismissed families’ beliefs while stripping away their rights.

“They said that our beliefs were utter garbage. The free exercise of religion includes a parent’s right to direct a child’s religious upbringing,” she said.

“Families should not be forced to sacrifice education, employment, privacy, financial stability and the peaceful enjoyment of life in order to maintain religious convictions as they raise their children,” Costine added.

‘We will never, never, never let this happen again’

Adm. Brian Christine, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told the commission the government must ensure that similar policies never return.

“Our citizens were coerced, they were lied to, and they were intimidated with fear,” Christine said, describing COVID-19-era policies.

“I stand before you today to say that we are fighting day and night to put the abominable ways of the past to rest. I promise you … we will never, never, never let this happen again,” he said.

Kheriaty said many Americans are now finding their voice.

“After the excesses and authoritarian overreach by governments during COVID, the people of the U.S. are now pushing back and reasserting their rights of conscience and freedom of religion in healthcare and other realms of public life,” he said.

He urged the commission to help strengthen protections and remind Americans of rights already guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

“I pray that this committee will assist them by strengthening and enforcing federal laws on the books, educating the public regarding rights that are already protected under law, and leaning on states to do the right thing when it comes to free and informed consent,” he said.

Watch the Religious Liberty Commission hearing here:

Related articles in The Defender

• ‘Demonized and Ostracized’: Worker Fired Over COVID Shot Testifies Before Religious Freedom Commission
• Breaking: Children’s Health Defense Sues New York in Bid to Restore Religious Exemptions
• Breaking: Congress Members Urge DOJ to Investigate 4 States That Prohibit Religious Exemptions
• ‘Right This Wrong’: GRACE Act Would Strip Federal Funding From Schools That Ban Religious Exemptions

The post Religious Liberty and Free Speech ‘Stand or Fall Together,’ Warns Doctor Fired Over Vaccine Mandate appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.

 

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