Disputes involving religious exemptions to vaccine mandates head to high court
In one case, Amish object to New York Legislature’s repeal of religious exception
At least three cases related to religious exemptions to vaccine mandates are facing possible review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Two of them involve legal disputes that had their origins during the covid-19 vaccine academic, and the three of them all raise different legal issues.
All three legal actions involve individuals or entities that are seeking exemptions from vaccine mandates.
The ability of states and local governments to impose vaccine requirements was first declared constitutional in the high court’s Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision of 1905, and numerous courts have continued to continued to uphold the practice. However, nearly all state laws have provided for medical exemptions and some kind of religious or conscience exceptions, and those exceptions have yet to be fully tested in federal courts.
The Supreme Court could discuss privately next month whether to hear the cases. Votes of at least four justices are required to consider a case; if the court does not agree to hear a case, the lower court’s decision stands but does not serve as a national precedent. If the court agrees to hear any of the cases, it would probably hold oral arguments and make a rulings during the coming term, which will end in June (or, less likely, July) of 2026. If the court rules on any of the cases, the ruling(s) would be the first involving vaccine mandates since 2022, when the court decided two cases involving federal covid-19 vaccine regulations during the Joe Biden administration.
The three cases1 are:
Miller v. McDonald: Three Amish persons and three Amish schools are fighting a 2019 decision by the New York Legislature to eliminate religious exemptions from its vaccine mandate law, making New York one of only four states that don’t have such an exemption. Among other things, the petitioners are asking the high court to overrule Employment Division v. Smith, a landmark 1990 Supreme Court decision that said New York state could deny jobless compensation after someone was fired for using illegal drugs even if those drugs were taken as part of a religious practice.
Does 1-2 v. Hochul: Plaintiff healthcare workers, filing their lawsuit anonymously, are seeking lost pay after they were fired in 2021 under the terms of a state covid-19 mandate (since repealed) when they refused to get vaccinated for religious reasons. The key issue in the case is whether state law supersedes Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act, which requires many employees to provide for religious accommodations unless an undue hardship prevents them from doing so.
Kane v. City of New York: Petitioners are educators who could not receive religious exemptions under New York City regulations, since repealed, that provided religious exemptions for employees who belonged to religions, such as the Christian Science faith, that are opposed to vaccines — but not to those who claimed that their personal religious convictions opposed vaccine use even if their religious organization (such as the Catholic Church) did not. The educators claim that city rules illegally privileged some religious beliefs over others.
There is also a fourth case that the court could consider involving vaccine mandates, Wilkins v. Herron, but it does not involve religious-freedom issues.