Topline
New York City’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for public school employees will be allowed to stand, as the U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to hear a challenge brought by four teachers who alleged the policy violated their right to practice their profession.
New York City municipal workers rally against the city's vaccination mandate on October 25, 2021.
Key Facts
The court rejected the case without comment or any indication of if any of the justices would have taken it up.
Four NYC public school teachers asked the court to take up the case in December after an appeals court left the policy in place.
It was the second time they had sought relief from the Supreme Court, as they previously asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees that region, to issue an injunction that would block the policy from taking effect, which she denied.
They argued that the city’s vaccine mandate—which forced all Department of Education employees who didn’t comply by October 1 to be suspended without pay for one year—violated their due process rights and made it impossible for them to teach, as the department of education is the only public employer of teachers in the city.
Attorneys for the city argued the court shouldn’t hear the case because the teachers asked the Supreme Court to hear it prematurely, adding they “cite no authority for their position … and fail to grapple with the precedent of this Court against them.”
Attorney Vinoo P. Varghese, who represented the teachers, told Forbes in an email they “are disappointed in the result, but we will continue the fight to protect the due process rights of our teachers against the new administration of Mayor Eric Adams.”
Chief Critic
“This case presents the Court with the opportunity to address a critical constitutional issue— whether public-school teachers have a fundamental right to practice their profession,” the teachers argued in their petition to the court.
Crucial Quote
“There are millions of public school teachers in this country,” lawyers for New York City’s Department of Education argued in their brief to the Supreme Court, saying the teachers who sued “can seek employment elsewhere” outside of New York City. “The notion that finding another job may require some effort, or that other employers also require vaccination, does not support a substantive due process claim.”
Key Background
The case rejected Monday is the second the Supreme Court has thrown out when it comes to New York City’s vaccine mandate for public school teachers. A separate legal challenge asked the court to throw out the vaccine requirement for the city’s municipal workers because they argued it was discriminatory when it came to religious exemptions. Sotomayor rejected that case in February, but the teachers then re-filed the case and asked the more conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch to consider it instead. Gorsuch referred the lawsuit to the full court, which rejected the case for a second time in March. Though the 6-3 conservative court ruled against the Biden administration’s federal vaccine-or-test mandate for private employers, the court has largely let more local vaccine requirements stand, rejecting challenges to such policies as Maine’s mandate for healthcare workers and the vaccine requirement at Indiana University.
Further Reading
Supreme Court Allows NYC’s Teacher Vaccine Mandate To Take Effect (Forbes)
NYC Mandates Vaccines For All Public School Teachers And Staff (Forbes)
