Air Force admits decorated pilot suffered religious discrimination over COVID vaccine mandate

By Natalia Mittelstadt | Just the News

The Air Force Review Board found that pilot “was discriminated against on the basis of religion" for objection to orders to take the COVID vaccination. On “all fronts, this is a huge win,” pilot's attorney R. Davis Younts said.

The Air Force found that a pilot who faced separation from the military for requesting a religious exemption to the flu vaccine was discriminated against for his religion and should not have been reprimanded.

Major Brennan Schilperoort, who has served in the Air Force for 17 years and was a whistleblower over the COVID-19 vaccine, can now request the military branch give him backpay and restore his flight status after he was reprimanded when his Religious Accommodation Request (RAR) wasn’t processed.

Schilperoort was recommended for separation in October by a Board of Inquiry, which investigated the decision he made in December 2023 to not take the flu vaccine. Following the Board of Inquiry, Schilperoort was given 2.5 duty days’ notice in March that he would be placed on involuntary excess leave, which “means he goes into unpaid status” as his case is reviewed, his attorney, R. Davis Younts, previously told Just the News.

Pilot caught up in USAF process on RAR

“In over 22 years of doing this, I’ve never seen a case where someone is in this stage of the process he’s in and is put on involuntary excess leave,” Younts said in April. “The only time I’ve seen it is when someone is convicted at a court-martial or in federal prison, and the military is going to discharge them because of a federal conviction. He’s available to work, has no reason to not fly, and no misconduct pending.”

Younts added that Schilperoort’s RAR for the flu shot wasn’t processed by the Air Force because the RAR he submitted the prior year wasn’t denied until after the flu season ended. When he submitted another RAR for last year’s flu season, the Air Force “refused to process” it because “they said it took so long for the military to process the last one, that if he submits another and it takes the same length to process, then he’ll never get” the vaccine, Younts said. He added that the Air Force’s reasoning is “absurd” since it’s “their process.”

Also, Schilperoort “was a whistleblower over the COVID” vaccine, Younts said, “and he was vocal, appropriately, to the chain of command,” and was a “conscientious objector to the COVID vaccine.”

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