Legal
Breaking: Children’s Health Defense Sues New York in Bid to Restore Religious Exemptions
The lawsuit comes one week after a U.S. Supreme Court favorable ruling in another religious exemption case. Attorneys for CHD and the other plaintiffs — seven parents and nine children — said last week’s Supreme Court ruling signaled strong support for parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and a group of parents today sued the state of New York in federal court. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that the state’s 2019 law that repealed religious exemptions is unconstitutional.
New York lawmakers ended religious exemptions following a 2018-2019 measles outbreak in Brooklyn and Rockland County that prompted county officials to issue an emergency order.
The 2019 law forced families to choose between violating their religious beliefs to comply with the state’s vaccine mandates or denying their children the opportunity to attend school.
CHD’s lawsuit comes one week after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a favorable ruling in another New York religious exemption case.
Attorneys for CHD and its co-plaintiffs — seven parents and nine children — said the Dec. 8 ruling by the Supreme Court signaled strong support for parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing. The ruling also seemed to affirm the argument that New York’s rejection of religious exemptions is unconstitutional.
“For six years, New York families have lived under a deeply oppressive regime that trampled on their most fundamental rights,” Sujata Gibson, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender. “Tens of thousands of families were forced to become ‘religious refugees’ overnight, fleeing the state or hiding in the shadows just to protect their children.”
The lawsuit filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York describes a system of coercion that left families exiled from their communities and children expelled from school mid-year, according to the complaint.
The suit names Dr. James V. McDonald, in his official capacity as commissioner of Health of the state of New York, as the sole defendant.
The plaintiffs are requesting a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction allowing exemptions to continue unobstructed.
Why sue New York over religious exemptions now?
New York eliminated religious exemptions in 2019 — so why wait until now to challenge the constitutionality of the 2019 law?
Gibson said two decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in two other lawsuits — Miller v. McDonald and Mahmoud v. Taylor — set the stage for this latest challenge to New York’s elimination of religious exemptions.
One of those decisions relates to Miller v. McDonald, a case involving a group of Amish parents and school leaders in New York. In June 2023, the parents and school officials sued New York’s commissioners of Health and Education after the state barred unvaccinated children from attending classes at three Amish schools.
The state also fined the schools for violating state vaccine mandates — even though Amish schools don’t require proof of vaccination from students, the complaint stated.
According to the complaint, New York’s 2019 law violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly. It also conflicted with federal judicial precedent and the laws of over 40 states that allow religious exemptions.
In March 2024, a lower federal court denied the Amish plaintiffs’ request for an injunction against New York and dismissed their lawsuit. They appealed.
In March 2025, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s ruling.
However, believing the appeals court erred in its ruling, the parents and school leaders asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
On Dec. 8, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court’s ruling and directed the 2nd Circuit to reconsider its decision to uphold the lower court’s dismissal of the case.
In their ruling on the Miller v. McDonald case, the Supreme Court justices cited a decision they had handed down earlier this year, in June, in another case — Mahmoud v. Taylor.
The Mahmoud v. Taylor case involved parents who sued the state for the right to opt their children out of a Maryland school district’s compulsory LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum.
The Supreme Court sided with the parents in Mahmoud v. Taylor, ruling that the parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing outweighed the school’s interest in having all children learn from the curriculum.
In light of that decision, the Supreme Court asked the 2nd Circuit to reconsider the case involving the Amish parents and schools who challenged the repeal of religious exemptions under a strict scrutiny standard
‘New York’s vaccine policies cannot survive this rigorous standard’
Children’s Health Defense and the seven parents suing New York’s health commissioner contend that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor effectively rewrites the prevailing legal standard.
According to their complaint, New York is violating the parents’ religious beliefs by requiring them to vaccinate their children according to the state’s mandate as a condition of the children attending school.
Attorneys for CHD said that in light of last week’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing, New York’s 2019 law eliminating religious exemptions must now withstand strict scrutiny.
Strict scrutiny, a legal term, is defined as “the highest standard of judicial review” used to determine the constitutionality of government action that “burdens a fundamental right.”
According to the lawsuit filed today, “New York’s vaccine policies cannot survive this rigorous standard” — especially given that 45 other states “successfully manage communicable disease while offering religious or personal belief exemptions.”
Gibson said the Supreme Court’s decision last week to vacate the lower court’s dismissal of the Miller v. McDonald “provided the final, critical piece of the puzzle. By explicitly linking the Miller v. McDonald case to the Mahmoud v. Taylor case, the Supreme Court signaled that these broad parental protections apply to vaccine cases, too.”
Gibson said:
“We truly believe we now have what we need to overturn this tyrannical system. The courts have confirmed that the state can no longer condition access to vital benefits like education on the waiver of fundamental rights. We are fighting to ensure that this victory translates into the full restoration of religious and medical freedom for every family in New York.”
CHD CEO Mary Holland said parents in New York and other states without religious exemptions, “have waited way too long to be able to exercise their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.”
She added:
“All religions talk about the sacred nature of the human body. It is for each individual in accordance with his or her conscience and religion to decide how to treat that sacred body. Children are the responsibility of their parents and must be guided in accordance with their parents’ conscience and religion.
“I am grateful that the Supreme Court seems to have turned a corner on this fundamental issue.”
Plaintiffs’ stories are ‘harrowing and inspiring’
The complaint against New York’s health commissioner details the stories of families whose lives have been upended by the state’s school vaccine mandates.
“These parents face a renewed unconstitutional choice every single morning: either violate their sincere religious beliefs to end the nightmare or remain faithful and continue to witness their children denied the fundamental public benefit of an education,” the complaint states.
Other parents said they moved out of New York entirely, or are driving their children across state lines every day to attend schools in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where religious exemptions remain available.
The lawsuit alleges the excluded children face the prospect of long-term psychological and educational injury and the compounded trauma of religious discrimination and social stigma.
Christina Martinez, another attorney representing the plaintiffs, was also a victim of this policy. She told The Defender:
“Six years ago, my family — like more than 26,000 others — was erased from New York’s education system because of our religious beliefs. Overnight, we became religious refugees in our own state, forced to choose between our faith and our children’s future.
“What was done to our children in 2019 was not a policy disagreement. It was a constitutional injury. For six years, families have lived with the consequences of that injustice.”
Martinez said that the Dec. 8 ruling by the Supreme Court made it clear that parental rights are not negotiable and that the state “cannot condition access to education on the surrender of fundamental freedoms. The law has finally caught up to the lived reality of thousands of families.”
“This is the moment to undo that harm and restore what never should have been taken,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to grant emergency relief, alleging that if it fails to do so, these and countless children “face imminent exclusion and irreparable harm.”
CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg said today’s lawsuit could be “another important step in the long fight to restore religious freedom to families in New York State.”
She added:
“The stories of what families have suffered in remaining true to their faith are both harrowing and inspiring. CHD is proud to stand with the other plaintiffs as this fight continues.
“The Supreme Court has signaled in Mahmoud v. Taylor and Miller v. McDonald that religious freedom is a fundamental right. This right must apply to allow people to choose what is injected in their bodies or those of their children.”
Related articles in The Defender- Lawyers: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Religious Exemptions a Big Win — But Decision Is ‘Far From’ Final
- ‘Checkmate’: U.S. Supreme Court Delivers Huge Win for Religious Exemptions
- Public Support for Religious Exemptions Nearly Doubled Over Past 6 Years
- Advocates for Religious Exemptions Notch Victories in West Virginia, Massachusetts
- West Virginia Schools Ordered to Defy Governor on Religious Exemptions
- Massachusetts Proposes Laws to Remove Religious Exemptions, Parental Consent for Vaccines
- Judge Rules in Favor of Teen in Medical Exemption Lawsuit Funded by Children’s Health Defense
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