Adrianna Kondilis, et al. v. City of Chicago, Illinois

Whether the First, Second, Third, and Tenth Circuits are correct that courts must permit discovery when public employees allege the government’s stated justification is a pretext for religious discrimination under Title VII, or whether the Seventh Circuit is correct that courts may accept the government’s stated rationale at face value and dismiss such claims at the pleading stage without any inquiry into pretext, motive, or discriminatory application.

Whether Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905)—decided regarding a smallpox vaccine and five-dollar fine under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause—should be limited or overturned in favor of a tiers-of-scrutiny approach in assessing First Amendment religious discrimination claims, with strict scrutiny to apply to government pandemic regulation as a pandemic wanes.