The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request from a group of New York City public school educators asking to overturn a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for employees not granted a religious exemption.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected the appeal without explanation, according to court records. The group’s attorneys initially filed an emergency appeal in October against former Mayor Bill de Blasio and ranking New York City Department of Education officials and were rejected.
A second emergency appeal was filed this week seeking an emergency injunction, arguing that the mandate violates religious freedoms because it considered and accepted religious exemptions under certain criteria.
NEW YORK EDUCATORS ASK SUPREME COURT TO STOP VACCINE MANDATE
School employees who are not members of a congregation or affiliated with a house of worship were at risk of not gaining exemptions because they are required to have an endorsement by a religious official under the city’s mandate.
Teachers and staff are required to be fully vaccinated by Feb. 14 or be placed on unpaid leave. As many as 3,000 municipal workers are slated to be fired for not meeting the vaccine mandate requirements, according to a Thursday New York Times report.
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Of the city’s 370,000-person workforce, nearly 95% have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
The Supreme Court has declined to hear numerous challenges to state and municipal vaccine mandates. However, the highest court dealt a major blow to President Joe Biden’s federal vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses last month, ruling that the U.S. Labor Department “lacked authority” to institute the requirement in workplaces broadly.
