Welcome to the TMS Weekly Dispatch for December 1, 2025—with the latest news and updates from the front line, to keep you in-the-know on all things Thomas More Society. If you missed last week’s edition, you can read it here.  

MAJOR VICTORY – TMS SECURES HISTORIC $10 MILLION SETTLEMENT: After more than a year of settlement negotiations, Thomas More Society is pleased to announce that, following a landmark decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 2024, the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine has agreed to pay more than $10.3 million in damages, tuition, and attorney’s fees to 18 plaintiffs who were denied religious accommodations to mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.  

Going forward, the University has agreed to allow students to request religious accommodations on equal terms as employees and to give the same consideration to requests for religious exemptions as are given for medical exemptions. Additionally, it has agreed to regain from future inquisitions into the supposed legitimacy of students’ and employees’ religious beliefs.  

Michael McHale, TMS Senior Counsel, reacted: “We are confident our clients’ long-overdue victory indeed confirms, despite the tyrannical efforts of many, that our shared constitutional right to religious liberty endures.”  

“The men and women at the heart of this case are true heroes,” added Peter Breen, TMS Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation. “They stood up, at great personal cost, to an injustice that never should have been inflicted on them—or on any American.”  

TMS FILES BRIEF OPPOSING “ABORTION TRAFFICKING” OF MINORS: Thomas More Society filed an amicus curiae (“friend-of-the-court”) brief in Welty v. Dunaway, supporting the state of Tennessee’s appeal of a lower court decision blocking enforcement of state law making “abortion trafficking” of minors a criminal act. According to the law, it is illegal for adults to recruit, harbor, or transport minors across state lines to get abortions without parental consent.  

From the Brief:

“It is perfectly constitutional for a state to criminalize conduct within its borders that encourages or seduces its residents to engage in harmful but legal behaviors—and to outlaw speech that is integral to those criminal acts of encouragement or seduction.”

LISTEN - NATHAN LOYD ON THE SIMPLE TRUTH PODCAST: TMS Senior Counsel Nathan Loyd joined The Simple Truth podcast to share the remarkable journey that carried him from a childhood fascination with science to studying aerospace engineering at the University of Notre Dame, serving in the United States Air Force (where he continues to serve in the reserves), and ultimately becoming a lawyer defending life, family, and freedom with Thomas More Society. Listen here or wherever you find your podcasts.  

TMS ADVOCATES FOR PARENTAL RIGHTS IN WAILES V. JEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Thomas More Society attorneys filed an amicus brief at the Tenth Circuit last week in Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools, in support of parents denied notice and opt-out when their children were assigned overnight rooms with opposite-sex transgender students.

The brief argues that the district court completely ignored precedent set by Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025), which mandates opt-outs whenever school policies substantially burden parents’ religious upbringing of their children.

From the Brief:

“Jefferson County Schools must allow opt-outs for the plaintiff parents’ children or otherwise undergo strict scrutiny—which it woefully fails under Mahmoud. Indeed, “the [school] cannot purport to rescue one group of students from stigma and isolation by stigmatizing and isolating another.” “A [school] environment that is welcoming to all students is something to be commended, but such an environment cannot be achieved through hostility towards the religious beliefs of students and their parents.”