By David Goerg

IDAHO FALLS—Nicholas Christiansen stands in the center of a small circle of people on the east side of Freeman Park in Idaho Falls. Two magnificent Great Danes recline on the grass to his left, but a small table in front of him seems to occupy most of the people’s attention.

Two pieces of paper rest on the table’s surface—one, a formal petition against vaccination mandates at the Idaho National Laboratory; the other, a request for legal counsel in order to receive religious or medical exemptions from the mandate.

More than 820 INL employees have responded to the petition, flocking to “Stand Up For Idaho”  gatherings like the one held the morning of Saturday, Sept. 25, to sign these documents, and to speak with fellow employees about their fears and grievances.

“I don’t want the vaccine,” says Ginger Dexter, an engineer at the INL. “I have a bad feeling about it, and I have the right to choose.”

Dexter is seeking a religious exemption to the INL’s newly enforced vaccine mandates—one of two routes that INL employees can take to avoid an injection.

 “I love my job, it pays very well. But I guess I have a choice to make,” says Dexter, in reference to the very real possibility that she could lose her employment at the INL if she refuses to comply with the vaccination mandate.

CHRISTIANSEN

“I’m 40 years old, I’ve got a wife and five kids, I’ve got everything else everybody else does, right? I’ve got a mortgage and car payments and a dog and all those things,” Christiansen says as he surveys the petitioners. “(My) job is to keep people safe. My degree is in it. Really, this is my whole career.”

Christiansen was a manager at the INL until noon on the previous Friday. That was when he received a phone call informing him of his termination from the laboratory. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic began back in 2020, Christiansen recalls watching as restrictions and regulations out at “the Site” became progressively strict and increasingly stringent. The rules changed over time, evolving from simple mask wearing and social distancing to tele-work (or working from home) and finally, to the vaccination mandates in compliance with President Joe Biden’s Sept. 9 address in which he announced an executive order stating that all federal workers and contractors would be required to be vaccinated. 

For Christiansen and others at the INL, this was a moment that they had been anticipating for a long time.

“We’ve seen the writing on the wall for a while, about this forced vaccination,” Christiansen says. “The line in the sand that I drew and that many others have drawn is at forced vaccination.”

INL POLICIES

The INL is owned by the United States Department of Energy, but it is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA), a limited liability company or LLC which is separate from the federal government. 

INL Director John Wagner provided the following statement to Rexburg Commons about the INL’s vaccination protocol: 

“Consistent with the administration’s Sept. 9 executive order, beginning Nov. 19, Idaho National Laboratory will require all staff members and many of its subcontractors to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This decision reflects our core value of safety. It reflects our desire to protect vulnerable populations. As a leader in the state of Idaho and a national laboratory that changes the world through great science, it reflects our willingness to use the best scientific data available to protect our staff and achieve our missions.”

INL spokesperson Sara Neumann issued the following statement to Rexburg Commons, regarding medical and religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccination requirements:

“In executing the new vaccination requirement, BEA will comply with federal law as it pertains to reasonable workplace accommodations for employees with a legitimate and demonstrable medical or religious reason for not complying with this safety requirement. If an employee qualifies for an exception, they will have to follow all COVID-related safety protocols for unvaccinated staff, which currently means wearing a mask, socially distancing and weekly mandatory testing.”

According to their official website, “the INL has planned a COVID-19 vaccination program in line with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the state of Idaho. Immunization is a critical component of the national strategy to reduce COVID-19-related illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths. It’s also a strong step in society’s return to normal, ultimately leading to a return to normal operations at INL.”

The INL is authorized to administer vaccines to its employees at on-site vaccination clinics, and it has encouraged vaccination since at least March 15, 2020.  

The INL has stated on its website that “If a vaccine becomes available through another opportunity, you should take it. Don’t wait for INL to provide a vaccination for you.”  

PETITION

Christiansen’s initial response to the vaccination mandate took the form of a petition. Starting on Sept. 11, he received over 450 signatures from fellow INL employees in three days, but he says the petition was ultimately ignored by the INL.

“The petition was to ask them to hold off on implementation, and that’s all it was,” Christiansen  says. “Hold off on the implementation of this mandate until it can be reviewed for constitutionality. Until it can be reviewed by the courts to see if this is legal. We were ignored . . . When Biden came out with his announcement the lab jumped right on it. Essentially what they said is we were going to do this anyway. And Biden’s announcement just made it easier.”

For many of the petitioners, the prospect of vaccination is not their ultimate grievance. 

“This isn’t about the safety or the efficacy (of vaccines) at all.” Christiansen says. “That’s not even the point. The point is that you don’t have the right to force somebody to put this in your body and to make that a condition of employment. That’s the very definition of coercion.”

RELIGIOUS AND MEDICAL EXEMPTIONS

“Frank,” an active employee at the INL who asked to remain anonymous, is pursuing a religious exemption to the vaccination mandate. The other course to exemption is a medical exemption, which is granted based on certain medical conditions and diagnoses.

Frank also observed that the Human Resources department at the INL is tasked with evaluating requests for religious exemptions.

According to an official statement from the INL, “The religious (exemption) question is whether you have a sincerely held religious belief that precludes you from complying with the company’s COVID vaccination policy, and whether a vaccination exemption on religious grounds can be accommodated without undue hardship to the employer.” 

Employees must explain their personal religious philosophy in a written email, which is then evaluated by INL’s Human Resources department to determine its legitimacy. If a request is rejected, the HR department issues a formal rejection letter, explaining why the claim was deemed to be illegitimate.

Frank and other anonymous sources have claimed that the INL has rejected certain petitions by concluding that “listening to the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your biased conscience.” 

Another religious exemption was allegedly denied by the INL, based on the reasoning that anybody can interpret scripture however they like, so an individual’s personal interpretation of scripture does not provide sufficient justification for a religious exemption.

The INL has stated that: “The standard of evaluation used for the requests is the legal standard that we are required to apply in each case.”

The legal standard that the INL applies to religious exemption requests can be found in Title VII of the 1967 Civil Rights Act.

TERMINATION

Christiansen’s termination came abruptly. 

“The INL wrongfully terminated me, so I’ll be getting a lawyer,” Christiansen says. “They terminated me for inciting people to break the rules, and for a conflict of interest. Evidently, my website constitutes a conflict of interest.”  

The website Christiansen is referring to is Americanlibertymatters.com. He created it to address pandemic-related work issues and facilitate fellow employees’ access to the petition.

The website contains multiple forums of discussion for INL employees. One of the groups called “INL Employees Stand Against Mandatory Vaccines” has over 120 active participants, who post their thoughts and comments on the developing controversy that is embroiling their workplace.

Here, people share their experiences in seeking exemptions and offer support to one another, along with discussion boards on Constitutional government and the principles of liberty.

According to Christiansen, the INL typically follows a meticulous and thorough process of discipline for their employees, offering multiple warnings and holding counsels of deliberation to determine whether or not termination is warranted. 

Christansen says this long-term process was not followed in his case. Shortly after he announced a second petition against vaccination mandates, he was placed on unpaid administrative leave, pending his termination which occurred the following day.

“If they think they are going to stop me by terminating me, they’re woefully mistaken,” Christiansen says. “The fight doesn’t stop here. We have a lot of work left to do. This fight is much bigger than the Idaho National Laboratory. I believe it to be nothing more than good versus evil. Nothing less than freedom versus tyranny and slavery. This will turn out to be the social issue of our time. And I firmly intend to be on the frontlines of this fight.”

Christiansen started a GoFundMe page on Sept. 30 called “Fired for Standing Against Tyranny,” part of which states: “I worked in Radiological Controls for 15 years, and now I need to find a new career. Please donate to help our family and to fight against tyranny.” 

Disclaimer: Rexburg Commons does not officially endorse GoFundMe fundraisers and encourages readers to independently vet the beneficiaries. 

See rexburgcommons.com for more local news and events.