Rashon Snyder v. Chicago Transit Authority

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted June 30, 2026*
Decided June 30, 2026
Before
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 25-2242
RASHON SNYDER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 22 CV 6086
Manish S. Shah,
Judge.
O R D E R
Rashon Snyder was fired from his job as a bus operator for the Chicago Transit
Authority (CTA) after he refused to comply with the agency’s mandatory COVID-19
vaccination policy for employees. The CTA had previously denied Snyder’s requests for
a religious exemption from the policy. He sued the CTA for religious discrimination
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the brief and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 25-2242 Page 2
under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Illinois Religious Freedom
Restoration Act. The district court entered summary judgment for the CTA. We affirm.
Because Snyder opposed summary judgment, we construe the record in his favor
except where, as the district court ruled, he did not comply with the district court's
procedural rules in responding to a motion for summary judgment. Snyder responded
not to the CTA’s statement of material facts but to its brief in support of its motion for
summary judgment, and even there he did not include specific references to the record.
Under the circumstances, the court did not abuse its discretion by deeming the
defendants’ facts admitted under Local Rule 56.1. See N.D. Ill. R. 56.1; Friend v. Valley
View Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. 365U, 789 F.3d 707, 710–11 (7th Cir. 2015).
Snyder worked as a bus operator for the CTA from 2015 until 2022. In September
2021, the CTA implemented a policy requiring all employees to submit proof of
vaccination against COVID-19. Under the policy, employees were allowed to request an
exemption on religious grounds if a sincerely held religious belief or observance
prevented them from receiving the vaccination. Once employees submitted a request,
the CTA’s Religious Accommodation Review Committee would review it and
determine by majority vote whether the employees sufficiently connected their religious
beliefs to their inability to comply with the policy. The committee did not determine
whether employees’ religious beliefs were sincerely held.
In September 2021, Snyder submitted a request for a religious exemption. He
explained that he practiced “the laws of cleanliness” and adhered to dietary rules
outlined in the biblical books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. He explained that the
Bible instructed him to “refrain from the ingestion of unclean animals,” including “pork
or derivatives, such as gelatin which are in most vaccines.” He also attached a letter
from his minister explaining that vaccines were “inconsistent” with their beliefs, though
individuals had discretion to choose which vaccines and immunizations they received.
When the committee asked Snyder to provide additional information, he restated
his adherence to cleanliness and dietary laws as well as his view that the vaccine
mandate interfered with his ability to serve “[his] God and [his] way of life.” Snyder
also cited concerns about the presence of heavy metals in most vaccinations, potential
long-term risks, and the rush with which the vaccine was approved. And he
supplemented his submission with website links to sources that purportedly explained
the risks of the COVID-19 vaccine, including an article from InfoWars.com and a
YouTube video published by “Project Veritas.”

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No. 25-2242 Page 3
The committee denied Snyder’s request because he failed to connect sufficiently
his religious beliefs to his inability to take the vaccination. The committee warned
Snyder that his failure to comply with the vaccine policy could subject him to discipline,
including discharge.
Snyder then participated in the CTA’s disciplinary process. After a disciplinary
interview, he was charged with a violation for failing to comply with the vaccine policy,
issued a final written warning, and removed from service. After a second interview, a
general manager at CTA fired Snyder. During the interviews, Snyder did not mention
his religion or religious beliefs, and the general manager later attested that he was not
aware of and did not consider Snyder’s religion before firing him.
Snyder filed this lawsuit asserting that the CTA (1) failed to accommodate his
religious beliefs, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000e, and (2) substantially burdened his exercise of religion, in violation of the
Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act (IRFRA), 775 ILCS 35/15, by requiring that
he take a vaccine that, he says, incorporated ingredients derived from the “cell lines of
aborted fetuses.”
The district court granted the CTA’s motion for summary judgment. On Snyder’s
Title VII claim, the court concluded that he failed to make out a prima facie case of
religious discrimination. To do so, Snyder needed to show, among other things, that the
belief that prevented him from complying with the CTA’s vaccine policy was religious
in nature. But even accepting the religious significance of Snyder’s belief that Biblical
laws prohibited him from ingesting certain ingredients, the court wrote, Snyder did not
connect this belief to any content in the COVID vaccine that he was religiously
obligated to avoid. Snyder conceded in a deposition, the court noted, that he never said
the COVID vaccine contained ingredients barred by his religion. Indeed, the court
continued, his objections to the vaccines reflected secular concerns about the possible
medical effects of harmful ingredients. The court thus concluded that there was no
evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that his grounds for objecting to the
vaccine were religious in nature. The court added that Snyder’s noncompliance with the
vaccine policy was a legitimate business reason to fire him, and that he submitted no
evidence from which a jury could find his discharge to be pretextual.
As for Snyder’s claim under the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the
district court concluded that no reasonable jury could find that the CTA substantially
burdened his free exercise of his religion. In the court’s view, Snyder had not presented

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any evidence to show that the vaccination policy prevented him from participating in
the basic tenets of his religion.
On appeal, Snyder first challenges the district court’s ruling on his Title VII claim
as at odds with our decision in Passarella v. Aspirus, Inc., 108 F.4th 1005, 1009-11 (7th Cir.
2024), in which we held that employees who have both religious and secular objections
to vaccination requirements can still make out a failure-to-accommodate claim. But
Pasarella was a case decided at the motion-to-dismiss stage. On a motion to dismiss, the
court must credit plausible allegations in the complaint. Snyder’s claim proceeded to
summary judgment and, as the district court rightly explained, faltered on a failure of
proof. Snyder presented no evidence to show how his beliefs made him religiously
obligated to avoid the COVID vaccine.
Snyder relatedly asserts, for the first time, that the court did not afford sufficient
weight to what he now characterizes as evidence of his “skepticism” of vaccines on
religious grounds. But he identifies no such evidence. For that matter, in his request for
an accommodation, he did not refer to any religious belief involving skepticism of
vaccines. And arguments raised for the first time on appeal are waived. See Lane v.
Structural Iron Workers Local No. 1 Pension Tr. Fund, 74 F.4th 445, 450 (7th Cir. 2023).
As to his IRFRA claim, Snyder contests the conclusion that he failed to present
evidence of a substantial burden on his free exercise of religion. Such a burden exists
where one is forced to choose between abandoning one's religious convictions and
complying with a government regulation. See Diggs v. Snyder, 775 N.E.2d 40, 45 (Ill.
App. Ct. 2002). Snyder asserts, as he did in the district court, that life is “sacred from
conception,” but arguments on appeal are not evidence, see Ho v. Donovan, 569 F.3d 677,
682 (7th Cir. 2009), so this claim suffers from the same failure of proof.
We have considered Snyder’s other arguments, and none merits discussion.
AFFIRMED

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