Supreme Court Reviews New York's Vaccine Exemption Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled a possible shift in New York's vaccine policies by reviewing the state's ban on religious exemptions for vaccines. On December 8, 2025, the court vacated a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the strict vaccine requirements in New York schools and directed a lower court to reconsider the case.

New York eliminated religious exemptions in 2019 following a significant measles outbreak in Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Rockland County, which had led to a rise in childhood vaccination rates.

The lawsuit challenging the ban was filed by Amish individuals and schools, arguing that the law infringed on their religious practices. Previously, New York was one of only five states without religious or personal exemptions for school vaccine requirements, and the Second Circuit U.S.

Court of Appeals noted that the pre-2019 trend of increasing religious exemptions had hampered disease control efforts.