A Philadelphia cardiologist has won a religious exemption from union membership and dues after objecting to his union’s resolutions condemning Israel and endorsing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against the country.
Dr. Jacob Agronin, a physician at Temple University Hospital, is a member of the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1957. Under CIR’s collective bargaining agreement with Temple University Hospital, covered employees were required to join the union or pay agency fees. With the help of the legal group America First Legal (AFL), Agronin sought an exemption on religious grounds. CIR granted the accommodation on October 9.
Agronin’s objection traces back to testimony he gave in May before the House subcommittee on Education and the Workforce, at a hearing titled “Bad Medicine: Politics, Unions, and Antisemitism in Health Care.” He told lawmakers his union was “engaging in systemic discrimination against Jewish and Israeli health providers, supporting terrorist sympathizers and making its obsession with a single geopolitical conflict a defining future of its identity.”
He called it “a problem for every American who cares about the integrity of our medical institutions and our national security.”
AFL pointed to two resolutions CIR adopted in May 2024 — “Housestaff for Human Rights” and “Housestaff Against Apartheid” — as central to the dispute. According to the union, the first resolution set a standard that CIR “will not endorse candidates who accept donations from the Israel lobby or who otherwise support genocide and apartheid,” while the second called for a permanent ceasefire and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. The union also said the “Housestaff Against Apartheid” resolution endorsed the BDS movement.
CIR had issued an earlier statement on Nov. 7, 2023, a month after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, saying it was “appalled and shocked by the recent violence in Israel and Palestine” and mourning lives lost on both sides. The union called on the Biden administration and Congress to restore food, water, electricity, housing and healthcare access in Gaza, to secure the release of hostages and of “Palestinians detained in Israel without due process,” and to “call for an immediate ceasefire.”
Megan Redshaw, counsel for AFL, said the case wasn’t an attempt to silence the union’s politics. “He wasn’t objecting to the union’s right to political speech,” Redshaw told Fox News Digital. “The union can have whatever views it wants to have. However, when the union imposes its views in the workplace and that affects the people that work at that organization, that institution, or that hospital, this becomes a Title VII issue.”
Redshaw said Agronin believed that funding the union in any capacity — even through payments that exclude political activity — would conflict with his religious beliefs.
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Redshaw said many workers mistakenly assume a religious accommodation only exempts them from the portion of dues spent on political causes, with the rest typically redirected to a charity chosen by the union. “Which is nefarious in and of itself, because the union can just choose a charity that perpetuates its causes that it believes in and transfer your money there,” she said.
She added that, depending on the state, workers can in fact request a full accommodation and object to union membership altogether — a route AFL says could offer a template for other physicians who object to their unions’ political advocacy on similar grounds.
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