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Children’s Health Defense (CHD) today called for a bipartisan congressional investigation into the secret “problem codes” New York City officials placed into the files of educators who lawfully declined COVID-19 vaccines.
The city’s “unwillingness to be transparent about how and when these codes are used and under what circumstances requires a thorough and complete investigation,” said CHD President Mary Holland, lead author of a letter sent to congressional leadership and the New York delegation.
Holland added:
“We must uncover the city’s purpose for these designations and what punitive measures it contemplated or carried out against employees for their personal healthcare decisions.
“City Hall recently denied that these Problem Codes have any external impact on employees or former employees, but that is incorrect.”
The same problem code city officials used to flag unvaccinated teachers is used for anyone accused of molesting, raping or injuring a child, according to Holland.
“These codes have a profound negative impact on flagged educators and can prevent them from further employment.”
The city also sent the unvaccinated teachers’ fingerprints to the FBI.
Unvaccinated New York City teachers were reportedly “flagged” with “problem codes” and their fingerprints sent to the FBI, according to an affidavit filed in federal court last week.https://t.co/FwuUC4TL96
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 15, 2023
According to CHD’s letter, Betsy Combier, president of Advocatz.com, is currently involved in 11 cases before the Public Employment Relations Bureau (PERB) where she is requesting the problem codes be removed from teachers’ files.
A PERB ruling from June 2022 declared that a substantiated report of discipline or misconduct had to be reported before a problem code could be placed in an educator’s personnel file, and the educator must be informed of the discipline or misconduct.
However, Combier found that many of the educators only learned of the codes because they tried to seek employment elsewhere and were denied the opportunity to apply.
“Placing a problem code on unvaccinated educators secretly, with no notice, does not square with this ruling,” Holland said.
New York City implemented the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for teachers and staff in August 2021. Employees were allowed to seek a religious exemption, but the city initially denied all of them and granted only 10% of the requests on appeal.
In November 2021, New York’s 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled most New York City Department of Education (DOE) employees who were denied a religious exemption and placed on unpaid leave must be allowed to reapply for an exemption under a new process.
The November ruling extended the court’s earlier decision that the 15 plaintiffs who sued former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (Kane v. de Blasio) and the City of New York (Keil v. The City of New York) must be allowed to reapply for a religious exemption to vaccination.
Last month, some of those same teachers filed a new lawsuit against the city — this time claiming the state constitution was violated on the basis of freedom of religion rights.
The lawsuit followed after New York Mayor Eric Adams on Feb. 6 announced the vaccines would no longer be mandatory for city employees, beginning Feb. 10. Under the new policy, employees fired for refusing the vaccine are not automatically reinstated and do not qualify for back pay.
Adams’ announcement came on the eve of a scheduled Feb. 7 hearing in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the multiple lawsuits — including two sponsored by CHD — challenging the city’s near-blanket refusal of religious exemption requests to the mandate.
Read the letter here.
