U.S. Supreme Court justices have rebuffed a challenge to a Connecticut law that revoked religious exemptions to childhood vaccine requirements.
The nation’s top court declined an appeal to consider overturning a split lower court ruling that found the law was constitutional. The justices did not comment on the rejection. Parents sued soon after, alleging the law violated their constitutional rights, including the right to free exercise of religion outlined in the U.
S. Constitution’s First Amendment. U.
S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton tossed the lawsuit in 2022, finding that vaccine requirements to attend school, under Supreme Court precedent, do not violate the free exercise right. Even if the precedent did not foreclose the challenge, the law is constitutional because it’s “rationally related to a legitimate state purpose,” the judge wrote.
Laws that implicate the freedom to practice religion can stay in place if officials show they’re rational and forward a state purpose deemed legitimate. A panel of the U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in a 2–1 ruling in 2023, upheld Judge Arterton’s decision. “Only one court—state or federal, trial or appellate—has ever found plausible a claim of a constitutional defect in a state’s school vaccination mandate on account of the absence or repeal of a religious exemption,” U.S.
Circuit Judge Denny Chin, writing for the majority, wrote at the time. “We decline to disturb this nearly unani.
