The mother of a 5-year-old is urging the Supreme Court to allow her son to enroll in kindergarten while she continues fighting a legal battle for a religious exemption to New York’s mandatory vaccination requirements for students.
The mother, identified in court filings as Jane Doe, filed an emergency petition to the high court asking it to let her son, identified as C.F. in court filings, to remain enrolled in kindergarten at the Waverly School while litigation continues in federal court over whether Section 2164 of the New York Public Health Law, which contains a blanket denial of religious exemptions to vaccination mandates, violates her religious rights.
Doe pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn an appeals court ruling that denied a claim that the law violated religious freedom. She also asked justices to reconsider the case in light of the high court’s 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, along with a Supreme Court emergency docket ruling earlier this year that halted California’s school policy of concealing student gender transitions from parents.
“In Mirabelli v. Bonta, this Court granted emergency relief just five months ago — before any merits decision below — to parents whose right to direct their children’s religious upbringing was burdened by state school policy,” said Doe’s petition to the Supreme Court asking for her child to be enrolled in school while her lawsuit proceeds. “The question whether § 2164’s categorical denial of religious accommodation survives this Court’s intervening Free Exercise decisions is therefore one this Court has already found worthy of its attention.
“The requested relief is narrow,” Doe’s petition reads, emphasizing the scope of the requested stay. “Applicant does not ask the Court on an emergency application to invalidate § 2164 statewide. She asks only that one already-enrolled child be permitted to begin and remain in kindergarten while the courts decide whether New York may categorically deny a religious accommodation while maintaining secular exemptions and individualized medical determinations.”
The Supreme Court requested responses from the school and New York officials regarding the petition before making a decision, and both entities filed their briefs to the high court on Monday. Officials from the Empire State argued the policy does not violate religious rights because it is a universal standard intended to prevent outbreaks of diseases in New York schools.
“Mandatory vaccination requirements like the one at issue here do not displace parent’s religious views; instead, they impose a condition on school attendance to reduce the spread of communicable disease. New York’s law easily satisfies rational-basis review, and would satisfy heightened scrutiny in any event,” New York officials said in their brief asking the high court to uphold the lower courts’ rulings.
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Both school and state officials also contended that the petition was moot, citing deadlines Doe had mentioned for making a decision on whether to stay in New York or move her child to Florida for schooling. Doe responded to those claims in a filing on Monday, claiming that the petition was not moot because the child must be vaccinated or face expulsion from the New York school by two weeks after the first day of school — Sept. 2 — meaning the deadline is not until Sept. 16.
The Supreme Court has no timetable for deciding Doe’s emergency petition.