The court left in place a ruling upholding New York’s decision to bar religious exemptions for healthcare workers, though three conservative justices said they would have heard the appeal.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Supreme Court on June 29 declined to hear a challenge to New York’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, leaving in place a lower court ruling that upheld the state’s decision to eliminate religious exemptions.
Six of the nine justices declined to review the appeal and did not explain their decision. At least four justices must agree to take up a case for the Supreme Court to grant review.
Justice Neil Gorsuch said the court should have heard the case. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined him.
The dispute centered on New York’s vaccine requirement for healthcare workers. The mandate originally allowed exemptions for medical and religious reasons. After Kathy Hochul became governor, the state removed the religious exemption, leading to the termination of some workers who refused vaccination on religious grounds.
Several of those workers sued New York and their former employers, arguing that the elimination of religious exemptions violated their rights.
A federal judge ruled against the plaintiffs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit later upheld that decision.
The appeals court said the plaintiffs may have plausibly alleged violations of employee rights under the Civil Rights Act. However, the court concluded that requiring employers to grant religious exemptions would have forced them to violate New York’s vaccine regulation, potentially exposing them to financial penalties or suspension of their operating licenses.
Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employers are not required to provide religious accommodations if doing so would create “an undue hardship.” The Second Circuit found that such hardship existed because granting exemptions would have placed the employers in conflict with state law.
Gorsuch questioned that reasoning in a written statement, saying he doubted whether a state regulation can determine the scope of protections under federal civil rights law.
“It seems to me that state law cannot control whether an employer faces an ‘undue hardship’ for purposes of federal antidiscrimination laws, just like it cannot conclusively resolve what constitutes a ’reasonable accommodation‘ or which criteria are ’necessary’ for admission to a public accommodation,” Gorsuch wrote.
He warned that allowing state law to control the analysis could weaken federal civil rights protections.
“To hold otherwise would appear to leave States free to strip individuals of the protections guaranteed by so many federal civil rights statutes … all by the simple expedient of proscribing accommodations those statutes promise. Rather than federal civil rights laws standing supreme over contrary state law, they would more nearly bow before it,” Gorsuch wrote.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case leaves the Second Circuit ruling intact and ends the workers’ appeal at the high court.
Lawyers for the defendants did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
The case leaves unresolved broader questions about how federal religious accommodation protections apply when state regulations prohibit exemptions that workers seek under federal civil rights law.
Original article
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