Amish Community Files Supreme Court Petition Challenging New York Vaccine Mandate

New York state’s Amish community has been facing heavy government fines for allowing students to attend Amish schools without proof of vaccination. Now the Amish are asking the Supreme Court to intervene.

From 1966 to 2019, unvaccinated students were allowed to attend school in New York with a medical exemption issued by a physician, or if they “hold genuine and sincere religious beliefs” opposed to vaccination. But in 2018 and through 2019, a measles outbreak—the largest in nearly 20 years—spread among the state’s Orthodox Jewish communities. Through effective disease control practices, the outbreak was contained with zero associated deaths.

Rattled, officials amended the state’s legal code in June 2019 to remove all religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The legislator who introduced the bill, Jeffrey Dinowitz (D–Bronx), attributed the outbreak to “misinformation and irresponsible rhetoric.” But instead of scaling up information campaigns, he chose to crack down on religious freedom.

In 2022, the government issued $118,000 in fines targeting three rural Amish schoolhouses—all of which are privately run, privately funded, and exclusively attended by members of the local Amish community—for failing to comply with the mandate.

Amongst New York’s Amish, vaccination is generally rare. “Positions vary,” says Cory Anderson, a Penn State expert on Amish health—and an Amish man himself. “But there is hesitation toward integrating unfamiliar and invasive medical practices.”

A group of Amish plaintiffs responded with Miller v. McDonald. Their suit argues that the 2019 expansion of New York’s vaccine mandates violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of their religion.

Under precedent set by Employment Division v. Smith (1990), a law may burden religious exercise only if meets the “rational basis” test and if it is “neutral and generally applicable.” The Amish argue that the expanded mandate is not neutral because “the State targeted religious adherents by eliminating [the] long-standing religious exemption while leaving the medical exemption process in place.”

Federal courts disagreed. In 2024, the District Court for the Western District of New York ruled that the law “is neutral on its face, neither targeting religious belief nor singling it out for particularly harsh treatment.” In 2025, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

While courts have historically relied on Smith to measure violations of the Free Exercise Clause, the Supreme Court has recently begun to adopt a broader interpretation of the clause, expanding parental religious rights. The Supreme Court recommended that the appellate court reconsider its rejection of the Amish petitioners, in light of Mahmoud v. Taylor

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