Eighteen plaintiffs will receive more than $10 million in damages after settling with the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine Monday over claims the school denied religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

The $10.3 million settlement ended more than four years of litigation after the school denied religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate in 2021 after concluding that the requestors did not present a “religious belief whose teachings are opposed to all immunizations,” the Thomas Moore Society, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a Monday news release.

“Nobody should be coerced into choosing between their faith and their livelihoods, as I and so many others at CU Anschutz were forced to do at the whim of ideological bureaucrats,” said Plaintiff Madison Gould in the release. “CU’s total disregard for our careers and livelihoods gutted the years of study and self-sacrifice poured out by so many in pursuit of serving the weakest among us. None of that mattered to the university.”

The settlement comes more than a year after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed a lower court decision and ruled that the school’s refusal of religious exemptions were “motivated by religious animus” and unconstitutional by the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clauses, according to a previous release.

That court also found that the university’s vaccine mandates granted exemptions for some religions but not others based on differences in their doctrines, and granted secular exemptions more favorably than religious ones, according to that release.

The basis of the suit was directed toward two vaccine mandates set forth by the university in September of the 2021, according to the legal decision letter. The Sept. 1 mandate provided exemptions for medical or religious reasons, but included a clause that said “(a) religious exemption may be submitted based on a person’s religious belief whose teachings are opposed to all immunizations.”

A university official later clarified that the clause meant that only those affiliated with religions that opposed all immunizations could get a religious exemption, according to the decision. A judge ruled that likely violated the First Amendment, as it favored employees who belonged to a religion that opposed all vaccines over those who held religious beliefs against the COVID vaccinations but did not belong to one organized religion.

A few weeks later on Sept. 24, 2021, the school adopted a second mandate that got rid of the aforementioned clause. But a majority still ruled that the revised policy still granted secular exemptions on “more favorable” terms than religious ones.

In a statement Thursday afternoon, a university spokesperson said that the policy was “grounded in science” and was an “obligation to safeguard lives” during the pandemic. They also noted that the university stands by the decisions they made during that time.

“While some chose to challenge the policy, the evidence remains clear: vaccination was essential to protecting the vulnerable, keeping hospitals open, and sustaining education and research,” the spokesperson added.

As part of Monday’s settlement, the university agreed to allow students to request religious accommodations on equal terms as employees and equally consider religious and medical exemptions, according to the release. It also agreed to stop asking about the legitimacy of students’ and employees’ religious beliefs.