The lawsuit filed Thursday claims that the Rochester-based health care system refused to grant a security guard’s request for a reasonable religious accommodation to its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.

Mayo Clinic discriminated against a security guard by effectively forcing him to get a COVID-19 shot despite his religious beliefs, federal employment regulators claim. Citing his Pentecostal faith, Cody Schultz asked Mayo in 2021 to exempt him from its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy,

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit on July 31 in the U.S. District Court of the District of Minnesota.