The Religious Liberty Commission (RLC) is meeting on Monday, March 16, 2026 in Washington DC focusing on religious freedom and healthcare. Below is an open letter I have submitted to the RLC in an attempt to draw attention to the continuing plight of NYC unvaccinated workers of faith with 4 recommendations at the end. I sent the below open letter to RLC@usdoj.gov on March 13, 2026. TEACHERS FOR CHOICE recommends everyone who has been impacted should consider sending their own account to the RLC as well.
Update: Letter was sent via email on March 13, 2026, 2:55pm ET to RLC@usdoj.gov,
cc: Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr., AAG Harmeet Dhillon, Senator Ron Johnson, President of CHD Mary Holland, CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg, civil rights attorney Sujata Gibson, as well as staff members in the offices of Senator Rand Paul, Senator Ron Johnson, Senator Bernie Moreno and Congressman Greg Steube.
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My name is Michael Kane, I am the Director of Advocacy at Children’s Health Defense and the founder of Teachers for Choice. I helped organize a peaceful worker resistance movement in NYC fighting against Covid vaccine mandates that included teachers, firefighters, cops, sanitation workers and more. We have organized ourselves under names that include NY Workers for Choice, Teachers for Choice, Bravest for Choice, Strongest for Choice, and Cops 4 Freedom (among others). Children’s Health Defense has been a major supporter of this effort, helping to fund and back multiple ongoing lawsuits related to the denial of our religious accommodations.
In September of 2021, I submitted a religious exemption to vaccination as a special education teacher with over 14 years on the job in NYC. The next month my exemption was denied and I was removed from my job for refusing to get the Covid shot. Ultimately in February of 2022, I was officially fired by the City and have been suing in the courts ever since (continuing still today nearly 5 years later). Even after a court ordered that I return to my position as a teacher I was never actually allowed to return to my job.
My story is comparable to that of Hermione Susana who did an outstanding job telling her story when she testified to the RLC just last month.
While this travesty of justice was - and is - horrible enough to warrant a letter to the RLC, this is not why I am writing to you today. Instead, I would like to call your attention to an extremely cruel “bait-and-switch” policy that NYC recently pretended to implement for fired unvaccinated workers, toying with the emotions of a group of people who have already been devastated by discrimination and denial of religious freedom.
In November of 2025, NYC’s former Mayor Eric Adams implemented a “right to return” policy for fired unvaccinated workers like myself. Believe it or not, NYC is still discriminating against unvaccinated workers by often requiring us to sign a legal waiver before returning to work for the City. Once signed, the waiver means you no longer have the right to sue NYC over any illegal implementation of their vaccine mandate. This is strange because if the City has truly done nothing wrong, as they claim, why should any unvaccinated worker need to sign away their legal rights?
Thankfully - finally! - this new “right to return” rule-change from the mayor was set to end this nonsensical policy. NPR’s print publication in NYC, Gothamist, reported on this where I was quoted in the article.
When then-mayor Eric Adams started the “right to return” process he set up a rule change meeting which was heard by DCAS; this agency is essentially NYC’s H.R. department. That meeting was held virtually via Zoom on November 19, 2025. After that meeting the rule was supposed to be sent to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) in Albany, NY, for final approval before implementation.
However, Mayor Eric Adams never sent the rule change to the CSC, and the current NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is refusing to comment on the issue when questioned by the press. All the new Mayor needs to do is refer this rule change to the CSC which would then allow hundreds if not thousands of unvaccinated workers to have a path back to their careers.
Today I know teachers with master’s degrees driving Uber. I know firefighters and kitchen workers who were made homeless by the illegal implementation of vaccine mandates that denied religious accommodation in unconstitutional fashion.
Here we are some 5 years after the Covid crisis and people are still being kept out of work for their sincerely held religious convictions dealing with vaccines. President Trump has done the right thing for military workers by issuing an Executive Order to reinstate unvaccinated soldiers with backpay. While that process has not been without its own problems, it is light years better than the insanity we are facing in NYC.
Recommendations to the RLC
I implore the commission to help us by doing the following:
First and foremost: Please give an immediate recommendation to the Trump Administration that they engage Mayor Zohran Mamdani to convince him to submit the above mentioned rule-change to the Civil Service Commission in Albany so unvaccinated New Yorkers of faith will receive at least minimal relief to be allowed to return to work for NYC. This is a very small ask and “small lift” for the mayor,
Shine a light on this horrifying injustice and include it in in your final report to President Trump and the Executive Branch,
Engage those of us impacted to come up with additional solutions to recommend as well,
I would also love to assist in getting impacted individuals to testify to you about how this impossible situation is destroying their lives in New York.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
Thank you for your time and consideration to this critical matter, and may God bless and guide you in your service with the RLC and always.
PDF version of letter here
Absolutely crazy. This needs to be put on every social media platform and every appropriate elected official contacted
Hopefully NYers are waking up to the truth about Mamdani.