Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case on Religious Vaccine Exemptions

The Court's refusal to hear this case leaves in place a lower court ruling that allows employers to deny religious accommodations for vaccine mandates if those accommodations would force the employer to violate state law.

• •The Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari in the case of Doe v. Hochul.
• •The case involves healthcare workers fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccines due to religious beliefs.
• •The Second Circuit Court of Appeals previously ruled that employers face an 'undue hardship' if an accommodation requires them to violate state law.
• •Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires employers to accommodate religious practices unless it causes 'undue hardship' to the business.
• •The 'undue hardship' standard requires the hardship to be 'substantial in the overall context of the employer’s business' per Groff v. DeJoy (2023).
• •New York State initially provided both medical and religious exemptions for its healthcare vaccine mandate.
• •Governor Hochul later removed the religious exemption while retaining the medical exemption.
• •The plaintiff, John Doe, proposed weekly testing and mask compliance as an alternative to vaccination.
• •The Second Circuit held that an accommodation requiring an employer to violate state law is an automatic 'undue hardship,' even if the state law is unconstitutional as applied.
• •Justice Gorsuch argues that federal law (Title VII) should preempt state laws that conflict with federal civil rights protections.

Patterns POLISCOPE noticed across the record. These are observations to investigate, not conclusions.