In a brewing legal showdown, three musicians have taken the North Carolina State Symphony to federal court over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, accusing the Symphony of violating the musicians’ religious freedom by groundlessly rejecting their religious exemption requests.
The musicians—Chris Caudill, Rachel Niketopoulos, and Dovid Friedlander—alleged in a complaint (pdf) filed on Aug. 31 at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina that the North Carolina State Symphony abused its authority to “wreck” their careers when it fired them for refusing the vaccine.
