While many have memory-holed the abuses of the COVID-19-era — from closed churches and open liquor stores, to loved ones dying alone in hospitals, to forced masking and pervasive censorship — a Christian employee of the largest national laboratory in the United States is continuing his court battle four years later against his employer, who he alleges discriminated against him for refusing to take the coronavirus vaccine.

In late September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit revived Jeffrey Bilyeu’s case against his employer, UT-Battelle, which manages the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Roane County, Tennessee. The lab is a 30,000-acre campus with over 300 buildings that house a publicly unknown number of top-secret projects pertaining to national security. UT-Battelle contracts 100 percent of its business with the U.S. Department of Energy — $2.7 billion worth — doing research and development on nuclear energy and modeling systems, stockpile testing, and many other activities that require special clearances to participate in.

The federal appeals court on Sept. 29 vacated a lower court order siding with UT-Battelle in a summary judgment, reversed the lower court’s judgment on Bilyeu’s retaliation claim, and remanded the case back to district court for further proceedings. Circuit Judge John K.