Five ex-staff sue MITRE over how HR handled vaccine beliefs
Five former employees of The MITRE Corporation have taken the company to federal court over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, accusing leadership and HR of shutting down religious accommodation requests and pushing ahead with termination anyway.
The cases, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, set out allegations by long‑serving professionals who say they were forced out after refusing vaccination on religious grounds and being denied what they describe as reasonable alternatives such as continued remote work. One of the filings is Ellis v. The MITRE Corporation, No. 1:26‑cv‑00970‑JRR. The court has not made any findings, and these remain allegations only.
The plaintiffs – Daniel R. Ellis, Andrea A. Kunz, Vincent DiGioia, Gloria George and Barbara M. Montella – all say they worked for MITRE between the mid‑2000s and November 2021, in roles ranging from Lead Cybersecurity Engineer to Principal Systems Engineer, Multidisciplinary Enterprise Engineer and Strategic Business Operations Analyst.
According to the complaints, MITRE introduced its own company‑wide vaccine mandate on August 16, 2021, “two months before the federal mandate through President Biden’s executive orders.” The filings say the company moved from testing for negative COVID‑19 results “to mandatory vaccine compliance before entering company spaces,” making vaccination a condition of employment unless a medical or religious exemption was approved. One complaint alleges that all religious and medical exemptions had to be approved by November 21, 2021, “after which the employee was marked for immediate termination.”
Each plaintiff says they sought a religious exemption based on Christian beliefs. Some describe viewing their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit and believing “all innocent life is sacred to God,” objecting to vaccines they associate with aborted fetal tissue and fetal cell lines. Others allege they received clear personal guidance in prayer “to take none of the COVID vaccines.” All five complaints assert that MITRE “refused to grant an exemption to the Plaintiff and nearly all of the employees who requested an exemption.”
For HR readers, the heart of what is alleged is less about theology than about process design and tone from the top.
The complaints attribute comments to MITRE’s chief executive, Jason Providakes, on an October 11, 2021, video call, saying he could “live with” the outcome if MITRE lost 10 percent of its employees because of non‑compliance with the vaccine requirement. In a later call, he is alleged to have described religious and medical exemptions as “two very limited circumstances,” warned there was “a very narrow window” for medical claims, and said there was a “high bar” for religious exemptions.
According to the filings, HR required employees seeking religious accommodation to complete a company‑drafted form that asked for “enough detail so that MITRE can determine that these beliefs are sincerely held and consistently guide and influence the employee’s life,” and stated that MITRE might “discuss the form with the employee.” The plaintiffs say MITRE promised an interactive process but “never conducted the interactive process,” instead using interviews to ask about religious dogma and beliefs “even before MITRE could have obtained an objective basis to believe the employee was insincere.”
They further allege MITRE “failed and refused to complete its own form” in the section where the employer was supposed to record why accommodation was denied. One complaint says the company “failed to explain its reasoning” and the denial letter “did not provide a right to appeal.”
On the practical side, all five plaintiffs describe working remotely or off‑site before and during the pandemic. One complaint says the physical requirements of the job were “largely limited to desk work and operating a computer,” and that the employee was willing to work from home, mask, socially distance and undergo frequent COVID‑19 testing. Several filings state that client worksites, including Department of Defense buildings, “did not impose a vaccine mandate” on MITRE staff and that government employees at those sites were “not required to be vaccinated.” The plaintiffs argue that “MITRE could have easily accommodated the requests” of employees who already worked remotely “by simply allowing [them] to continue to do so.”
Some complaints go further, alleging that “MITRE corporate leadership is anti-religious in its outlook” and that the company’s shift toward “more socially conscientious initiatives such as DEI” coincided with policies that, in their view, disproportionately affected “employees holding conservative religious views.”
Each plaintiff alleges termination or constructive termination around November 21–23, 2021, and asks the court for reinstatement, back pay and other economic losses, non‑economic damages and punitive damages “in excess of $75,000,” along with injunctive relief.
For HR leaders, the filings offer a pointed reminder: when health mandates intersect with religion, how policies are written, explained and carried out can become the focus of the dispute.
