In October 2021, during a politically charged special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to address the COVID-19 crisis, Rep. John Ragan read aloud an email from a BlueCross BlueShield employee opposed to her employer’s vaccine mandate.
The employee, Heather Smith, was being given the choice between getting a COVID-19 vaccine or losing her job, said the email to Ragan, an Oak Ridge Republican.
Smith’s religious objections to the vaccine were being ignored, she had written. Smith was seeking “legislative protection for … individual liberties and rights relating to vaccine mandates.”
Smith was fired less than a week later — not for refusing the vaccine, but for putting her complaints in writing to lawmakers. Her wrongful termination lawsuit was dismissed by a Hamilton County judge, and she appealed.