After receiving notification of the final military adjudication of their cases, Coast Guard cadets who sought a religious exemption from the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate were ordered to leave campus within 24 hours.
Just the News reported:
The cadets’ RAR appeals were denied in May. In June, the Coast Guard Academy notified the unvaccinated cadets that they would be disenrolled. The cadets appealed the disenrollment, but the academy didn’t reject the appeals until Aug. 15. The academy didn’t notify the cadets of its decision until Aug. 18, three days later, when it ordered them to leave by Aug. 19, the following afternoon.
When military members are denied their RARs for vaccine mandates, they’re allowed to appeal the denials. If their appeals are denied, then the military begins the process of separating them from the service.
After being ordered to leave within 24 hours of being notified that their disenrollment appeals were denied, the seven unvaccinated Coast Guard cadets had to pack up everything and figure out how to get themselves and all their belongings home before the deadline, one cadet told Just the News on Monday.
Because the cadets haven’t been disenrolled yet, they can’t leave the Coast Guard to look somewhere else for a job or education. The cadet said that it’s too late to transfer to another college at this point in the semester and that not all military academy credits transfer over, anyway.
The academy hasn’t told the cadets what the next steps are for disenrollment or when they will occur. Even if the academy lets them back, they have already fallen behind in their classes, according to the cadet.
Two of the unvaccinated cadets being forced to leave the academy’s campus are seniors, one is a junior, and four are sophomores. All of the freshman cadets were required to be vaccinated, as those who were unvaccinated were weeded out during bootcamp this summer, the cadet told Just the News.
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