WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a 2021 Connecticut law that eliminated the state’s longstanding religious exemption from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges and day care facilities.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the contentious law. A lower court judge had earlier dismissed the lawsuit challenging the law, which drew protests at the state Capitol.
Connecticut law requires students to receive certain immunizations before enrolling in school, allowing some medical exemptions. Prior to 2021, students also could seek religious exemptions. Lawmakers ended the religious exemption over concerns that an uptick in exemption requests was coupled with a decline in vaccination rates in some schools.
The change allowed current students in K-12 who already had a religious exemption to keep it.
Senate President Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said, in response to the ruling, “By closing a loophole for non-medical vaccine exemptions, Connecticut embraced a common sense vaccination policy that protects the health and safety of all students. This law has now withstood legal scrutiny at every level of our judicial system and its perseverance represents a victory for parents and students, who are less likely to be infected by preventable illnesses.”
Further, Attorney General William Tong said, “This is the end of the road to a challenge to Connecticut’s lifesaving and fully lawful vaccine requirements.
“We have said all along, and the courts have affirmed– the legislature acted responsibly and well within its authority to protect the health of Connecticut families and to stop the spread of preventable disease,” Tong said.
Tong also noted that, “only one part of the case now remains active, involving a single plaintiff’s claim based on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The Office of the Attorney General is confident that the IDEA claim will be dismissed by the District Court on remand.”
A group that has challenged other vaccination laws, including for COVID-19, sued. We the Patriots USA Inc. and several parents argued that Connecticut violated religious freedom protections by removing the exemption. The new law shows a hostility to religious believers and jeopardizes their rights to medical freedom and child rearing, they said in court papers.
Tong also said Connecticut law “requires students receive certain immunizations before enrolling in school. Prior to 2021, students could apply for medical or religious exemptions to that requirement. P.A. 21-6 eliminated the religious exemption, while grandfathering students in kindergarten through grade twelve who had already received such exemptions.”
