Supreme Court Revives Religious Exemption in NY Amish Student Case
- by Carolyn Hendler, JD
- Published
- Conscience
The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed and remanded a lower court decision to uphold a law that denied Amish children religious exemptions to public school vaccine mandates in New York state. The nation’s highest court vacated the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals opinion and remanded the case back to the lower court with instructions to revisit the ruling taking into consideration another recent Supreme Court ruling, Mahmoud v. Taylor.1
New York Removes Religious Exemption Without a Public Hearing
In 2019 New York repealed the religious exemption to vaccine mandates without the customary public hearings and in spite of opposition by families in New York supporting informed consent and First Amendment rights to freedom of religion.2 In 2022, three private Amish school houses were targeted by the state and fined $118,00 for allowing Amish children to attend school with religious exemption to the state-wide vaccine mandate.3 4 5
District Court Denies Injunction to Allow Amish Children to Attend School
In 2023, parents of the Amish school children brought a lawsuit seeking an injunction stopping the vaccine mandate. They alleged that their Constitutional rights were violated by the State Department of Education and State Department of Health. The district court granted a 129b) (6) motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s case and denied the preliminary injunction.6
Chief Legal counsel and president and CEO of First Liberty, Kelly Shakelford, who represented the plaintiffs, declared,
The Amish community in New York wants to be left alone to live out their faith just like they have for 200 years. Who is the authority over our children? Their parents or government bureaucrats? Ultimately, this case will affect every American — their religious freedoms and the authority of every parent to raise their children according to their faith.7
Appellate Court Affirms Lower Court’s Ruling Dismissing the Case
The Second Circuit Appellate court affirmed the lower court’s ruling finding that the statute was neutral and generally applicable and therefore constitutionally sound. The court determined that the state’s purpose in denying religious exemptions was to prevent the outbreak of disease. The court further found that medical exemptions were distinct from religious exemptions in that they applied to an “objectively defined group” and there was no discretionary authority needed in granting or denying the exemption.
Finally, the Appellate court concluded that the state was not a threat to the free exercise of religion granted under the U.S Constitution. For these reasons the court used the rational basis test, the least stringent standard for determining whether a government action is constitutional, upheld the denial of religious exemptions to vaccination and dismissed the suit.8 9
Plaintiffs filed a Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court which is a formal request that the high court review a lower court decision.10 The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and issued a summary disposition vacating the lower court’s decision.11
Supreme Court Reverses and Remands Case Back to Lower Court
The Supreme Court remanded the case instructing the Second Circuit court to reconsider the case in light of its recent decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor decided this past June. In Mahmoud, the Supreme court upheld parent’s rights to opt their children out of school-based LGBTQ curriculum when it conflicts with their religious beliefs. The court of last resort found that parents not only had the right to challenge government policies that interfered with exercise of their religious beliefs under the free exercise clause of the Constitution, but that they did not give up those rights when their children attended public school.12
Amish Parent’s Free Exercise Rights Trump State’s Parens Patriae Interest
Justice Alito, writing the majority opinion placed significant weight on Yoder v. Wisconsin, a case involving Amish children and public school. In Yoder, Amish parents were prosecuted for refusing to send their children to school beyond the eighth grade in violation of Wisconsin law. The Amish families argued that attended public high school was against their religious beliefs. The Supreme Court found that the First Amendment right of free exercise of religion outweighed the states interest in directing school attendance past eighth grade and that the benefit of an additional year or two of high school was not great enough to justify the law.13
The High court maintained that the Amish have sustained a long history of sincerity in their religious beliefs. The state’s parens patriae interest, where the state has the legal authority to act as the parent of an individual who in in need of protection14 in children attending high school, cannot override an Amish parent’s fee exercise of religion claim.
In Yoder, the Supreme Court stated:
In sum, the unchallenged testimony of acknowledged experts in education and religious history, almost 300 years of consistent practice, and strong evidence of a sustained faith pervading and regulating respondents’ entire mode of life support the claim that enforcement of the State’s requirement of compulsory formal education after the eighth grade would gravely endanger, if not destroy, the free exercise of respondents’ religious beliefs…In sum, the unchallenged testimony of acknowledged experts in education and religious history, almost 300 years of consistent practice, and strong evidence of a sustained faith pervading and regulating respondents’ entire mode of life support the claim that enforcement of the State’s requirement of compulsory formal education after the eighth grade would gravely endanger, if not destroy, the free exercise of respondents’ religious beliefs.15
Yoder Confirmed General Principles, Not a Unique Holding
In the Mahmoud opinion, Justice Alito pointed out that the decision in Yoder was not an anomaly but rather, “a statement of general principles” and that when a state refuses to allow a parent to opt-out of certain school requirements it is a “chilling vision of the power of the state to strip away the critical right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.”16
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