Supreme Court declines to intervene in New York religious vaccine exemption case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to intervene in a lawsuit brought by a New York mother who wanted to send her child to kindergarten while a challenge over the state’s vaccine requirements continues to play out.

The mother, identified only as Jane Doe, was seeking emergency relief from the high court to keep her 5-year-old son enrolled in an Eastchester, N.Y., school as courts weigh whether the state can legally deny religious exemptions for unvaccinated students.

The justices issued a one-line order denying Doe’s application. They offered no explanation for the decision, as is common with rulings on the court’s emergency docket.

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch noted they would have granted it.

The mother has claimed that her Catholic faith precludes her from further vaccinating herself and her child, writing in a statement to the school in April that she believes it is a “genuine, serious sin.”

New York eliminated its religious exemption to school vaccination requirements during a 2019 measles outbreak but continues to recognize medical exemptions, which Doe’s attorneys have argued infringes on her constitutional rights to direct her child’s religious upbringing.

Attorneys also stated that Doe faced “imminent forced relocation” to Florida if the justices did not step in because the state “provides no school-attendance route for a religiously objecting unvaccinated child.”

“A merits decision months later cannot reconstruct the beginning of a five-year-old’s kindergarten year,” they wrote in the application .

State officials defended lawmakers’ decision to repeal the religious exemption, citing an overarching need to stop the spread of infectious diseases.

“That response was rational because vaccination is widely recognized as an effective tool in promoting public health and preventing the severe harms that may result from vaccine preventable diseases,” a response brief signed by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) stated. “And that response was narrowly tailored to address the precise cause of the recent decrease in immunization rates that threatened herd immunity in certain communities.”

Vaccination rates among kindergarteners are falling across the U.S., according to recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while exemptions are on the rise.

The data showed that 4.2 percent of American kindergarteners were exempted from one or more vaccines in the 2025-2026 school year, a slight uptick from the previous year.

The Department of Health and Human Services has made sweeping changes to vaccine policy during the second Trump administration, including lowering the number of recommended shots for children.