Supreme Court rejects legal battle over New York's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers
Source: CBS News
Updated on: June 29, 2026 / 11:19 AM EDT / CBS News
Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a legal battle involving New York's now-repealed mandate for healthcare workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic. The dispute arose after the New York Department of Health issued an emergency rule in 2021 that required all licensed healthcare workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to address the spread of the virus in medical facilities and nursing homes.
State officials said the rule allowed healthcare employers to accommodate religious exemptions in certain ways, but did not permit blanket exemptions from the vaccine mandate. The vaccine requirement was repealed as of October 2023 after the Biden administration ended the federal COVID-19 public health emergency.
A group of employees at New York healthcare facilities sought religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate, arguing that their sincerely held religious beliefs prevented them from receiving the COVID-19 shots. But their employers rejected the workers' requests for religious accommodations and fired them. They then filed a lawsuit against Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state officials, as well as their employers — New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System, Trinity Health and Westchester Medical Center Advanced Physician Services.
The workers, who are unnamed in court papers, argued that their employers' refusal to grant exemptions violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination because of religion and requires employers to make religious accommodations unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on their business. They also said that Title VII trumps the state's vaccination mandate. A federal district court tossed out the case, and an appeals court upheld that decision.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-new-york-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-healthcare-workers/