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The U.S. Air Force is violating federal law by discriminating against service members seeking religious accommodations from military vaccine mandates, a newly amended lawsuit alleges.
The amended complaint, filed by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and three active-duty service members, alleges the service members were harmed by the U.S. Air Force when it failed to respond to their requests for religious exemptions, denied deployment opportunities and launched disciplinary actions against them.
The service members are Maj. Brennan Schilperoort, Lt. Col. Benjamin Leiby and Staff Sgt. Brittany Puckett.
According to the complaint, filed July 24, the Air Force denied Schilperoort’s exemption request for the flu vaccine, even though it approved his exemption for the tetanus-diphtheria shot that was included in the same request. The Air Force then “refused to process” his new request and reprimanded him for declining the flu shot.
Schilperoort’s story received national attention in March, when the Air Force withdrew its disciplinary actions against him.
In the case of Leiby and Puckett, the Air Force has never issued a final decision on their exemption requests, despite their repeated resubmissions and appeals.
According to the complaint, the three service members’ cases reflect the experiences of many other service members who have sought religious exemptions.
“The treatment of religious accommodation requests reflected in this case is part of a broader pattern across the military,” the complaint states. “This lawsuit seeks to expose, challenge, and remedy these failures.”
Amended complaint introduces new plaintiffs, shifts focus to service members
The complaint names U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of the Air Force Troy E. Meink and Surgeon General of the Air Force John J. Degoes as defendants.
The suit accuses the defendants of violating the Free Exercise and Equal Protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The service members are asking that the Air Force be required to process their pending exemption requests and refrain from disciplinary proceedings or any actions that would force them to get vaccinated while their exemption requests remain pending.
The suit also seeks the removal of disciplinary actions from the members’ records.
The amended complaint replaces the original complaint CHD filed against Hegseth in December 2025. The original complaint focused on the military’s “ambiguous” process for granting religious exemptions to recruits. However, it did not specifically name any recruits or active service members as plaintiffs.
The original complaint also alleged that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) immunization schedule is aligned with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended childhood immunization schedule — even though neither agency has performed safety studies on the cumulative effect of administering all the vaccines on that schedule.
Attorney Rick Jaffe, who represents the plaintiffs, wrote in his blog that the U.S. Department of Justice, which represents the DOD, moved to dismiss the original suit because it contained “no individual with an identified injury.”
“However, what we did have were people already in uniform who had gone through the religious accommodation process and been ground down by it,” Jaffe wrote. “We pivoted from the problem facing recruits to the problems service members faced in the religious exemption process.”
CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg said the new plaintiffs are exemplary of the “military’s wrongful treatment of those with religious objections to vaccination” and “represent the many across all branches who have been impacted.”
“There is a fundamental unfairness to deny those men and women — who literally put their lives on the line to defend the Constitution — the protections of the Constitution,” Mack Rosenberg said.
Schilperoort applied for two religious exemptions — but was only granted one
According to the amended complaint, Schilperoort, a senior C-130J pilot, has not received any vaccine since 2021, due to his “sincere religious beliefs, grounded in his Christian faith,” which “forbid” him from receiving the flu and tetanus-diphtheria shots, for which he sought exemptions in 2022.
In September 2023, the Air Force surgeon general approved Schilperoort’s exemption request for the tetanus-diphtheria shot — but denied the flu shot request. The Air Force also denied his November 2023 medical exemption request, citing natural immunity and a prior severe adverse reaction to the flu shot.
In December 2023, Schilperoort’s commander ordered him to get the flu shot within seven days, forcing him to file a new exemption request that month.
But instead of processing the new request, Schilperoort’s commander issued him a Letter of Reprimand in January 2024. The letter “became the sole basis for a referral officer performance brief, a ‘do not promote’ recommendation, and, ultimately, discharge proceedings, and loss of pay.”
The reprimand was issued “without the documentary basis” military regulations require. It alleged that Schilperoort had “not only harmed good order and discipline, but … compromised mission readiness” — an assertion the complaint says was false. Yet, the reprimand was upheld.
Schilperoort subsequently filed three more complaints and inquiries, including with his congressional representative. However, in May 2024, he was recommended for discharge — resulting in the launch of involuntary discharge proceedings against him for failing to “acceptably discharge his duties” and for “serious or recurring misconduct.”
In October 2024, a military board voted to discharge Schilperoort, and in May 2025, he was placed on involuntary excess leave and denied pay for three months.
Schilperoort’s involuntary leave was overturned. However, in July 2025, he was suspended from aviation service, and his pay and aviation bonus were stripped.
Ultimately, Schilperoort’s appeals were substantiated, finding that he was the “victim of an error or injustice.” Schilperoort’s lost pay and leave were restored, the letter of reprimand and discharge removed from his record, and he was given a temporary 90-day exemption to submit a new religious exemption request or get the flu shot.
However, according to the complaint, this is merely a temporary solution, as the 90-day extension expires in September. Schilperoort must then “either submit a new religious accommodation request, to be adjudicated by the Department whose handling of his last request produced the reprimand, the discharge board, and the loss of his pay, or receive the vaccine his faith forbids.”
The complaint notes that although the DOD ended the military’s flu vaccine mandate in April, several branches, including the Air Force, received exceptions to that requirement and now require service members to get the shot.
Air Force never issued a decision on Leiby’s religious exemption requests
Leiby, a senior mobility analyst at U.S. Transportation Command, is described in the complaint as “a Christian raised in the Baptist tradition” whose religious objection to vaccines “rests on conscience and stewardship.”
Yet, despite submitting four religious exemption requests since 2021 — for the flu and the tetanus-diphtheria vaccines — “none was ever adjudicated on the merits by the deciding authority,” even though Air Force rules require a decision within 60 days.
The complaint states that Leiby’s initial requests “received no written disposition, no grant, denial, return, or closure, of any of the requests he had filed.” His May 2023 request received unanimous approval by the Air Force’s Religious Resolution Team in December 2023, but no final decision was issued.
Instead, Leiby was reassigned in April, requiring him to reapply for an exemption. He currently has a temporary exemption for the tetanus-diphtheria shot requirement, which expires in September.
Due to Leiby’s “deficient” immunization status, his deployment was threatened and required intervention from his “commander, a chaplain, and a judge advocate,” who helped him secure a temporary exemption that allowed him to deploy on time.
Air Force overrode commander’s approval, rejected Puckett’s exemption
Puckett, a survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialist, is described in the complaint as a holistic Christian who does not take medications except in life-or-death situations and who has not received a vaccine in five years.
In December 2024, Puckett submitted a religious exemption request “from all required vaccinations.” Puckett’s chaplain, flight surgeon and squadron commander found her request sincere and recommended approval. However, in March 2025, the 27th Special Operations Wing Religious Resolution Team rejected the request.
In rejecting Puckett’s request, the team noted that her squadron commander, despite recommending approval of the request, said that the alternative accommodations Puckett would require “would” affect or hinder the squadron.
However, according to the complaint, this was an incorrect transcription of what the squadron commander had said and that the squadron commander subsequently sought to correct the record, writing to the team to inform it that he said accommodations for Puckett “could” hinder the squadron — not “would.”
The complaint notes that this distinction marks the difference between a “real (not theoretical) adverse impact” and a “theoretical” impact. Yet, despite the squadron commander’s correction, Puckett’s wing commander and the Air Force Special Operations Command commander denied her request later in 2025.
In October 2025, Puckett submitted an appeal to the Air Force surgeon general, who “has never responded to or decided her appeal” — despite a requirement that such appeals be resolved within 30 business days.
“Puckett’s appeal is pending on a closed record. Neither she nor her chain of command has been asked for additional material, and she has been notified of no panel, no investigator, and no further evidentiary step,” the complaint states.
According to the complaint, Puckett’s previous religious exemption requests — filed in 2021, 2022 and 2023 — were unresponded to or rejected via “canned” denial letters without individualized assessments. One denial letter came 17 months after the application — after the appeals window for that request had already closed.
The complaint adds that the Air Force rejected medical exemption requests Puckett submitted during two pregnancies.
In 2022, Puckett was reprimanded for not receiving a COVID-19 vaccine after she challenged an order to receive a fully licensed COVID-19 shot — when the only available COVID-19 vaccines were those issued under emergency use authorization.
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Broader pattern of slow-walking, stonewalling religious exemption requests
According to the complaint, the three plaintiffs’ experiences reflect a broader pattern within the military, where religious exemption requests are not responded to or are rejected without appropriate justification.
Pam Long, director of CHD’s Military Chapter, told The Defender last year that “hundreds” of active-duty service members who have filed a religious accommodation request have had those requests “ignored or denied” by the DOW, sometimes for months or years.
According to Jaffe, the military’s process for applying for a religious exemption is far more arduous than the process most states implement for parents requesting such a waiver for their school-aged children.
“Forty-four or forty-five states and the District of Columbia have a religious exemption of some kind, and I am not aware of one that puts a family through an adjudication, like what the military puts service personnel through,” Jaffe wrote.
Related articles in The Defender
- Military Reinstates Flu Vaccines Amid Texas Outbreak — but Won’t Say if Sick Recruits Were Vaccinated
- Breaking: Children’s Health Defense Sues DOD Over ‘Sham’ Religious Exemption Policies
- ‘Major Victory’: Military Ends Flu Vaccine Mandate for All Service Members
- ‘Crucial Victory’: Appeals Court Revives Challenge to Military COVID Vaccine Mandates
- ‘Unwinding the Mess’: DOD Launches Task Forces to Investigate Military COVID Vaccine Mandates
- Military Could Owe Billions to Service Members Involuntarily Discharged for Refusing COVID Shots
