Federal judge rejects opponents’ request to block vaccination law
ALBANY — A federal judge has rejected a request to block a new state law that ended New York’s religious exemption for school vaccination requirements, delivering a setback to opponents who argue that the repeal violates U.S. education law.
Judge Allyne R. Ross of the Eastern District of New York denied a request from attorneys Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kim Mack Rosenberg for a preliminary injunction to compel the state to admit students with disabilities to schools this fall regardless of the religious exemption repeal and their vaccination status.
The judge ruled that while the plaintiffs’ children qualify for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — and are entitled to continue doing so if they return to school — “their status as children with disabilities … does not entitle them to an injunction banning the enforcement of a neutral, widely applicable state law.”
“Plaintiffs’ objection to the repeal constitutes an affirmative choice to opt-out of public, private and parochial schools — not a unilateral action on the part of defendants that interferes with or alters their rights under the IDEA,” Ross wrote in a decision released on Monday. “As a result, and for the foregoing reasons, they are not entitled to either a preliminary injunction or a stay-put order, and their motion is denied.”
Rosenberg, an attorney with Bouer Law LLC who joined Kennedy in filing the lawsuit late last month, said the attorneys are “carefully analyzing the Court’s decision and assessing next steps.”
“We are, of course, disappointed in Judge Ross’s decision denying a preliminary injunction, which would have allowed New York’s most vulnerable students with disabilities to return to their classrooms this fall and receive the education placements and related services in the settings mandated by their IEPs,” she said in a statement released Tuesday.
The lawsuit contends that the new law should be overturned because it violates the IDEA by denying children their right to free and appropriate public education, as well as their right to due notice required under law.
It further asks the court to compel the state to open schools to children with disabilities, enjoin New York’s religious vaccination exemption repeal and ultimately declare the legislation in violation of federal law.
State law requires schools to provide special-needs students with all of the services outlined in their Individualized Education Plans. It is unclear how districts should meet that requirement if those children are not properly vaccinated.
The lawsuit, which named Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General Tish James and state education officials as defendants, is the second legal challenge brought by the advocacy group Children’s Health Defense in an attempt to overturn the new vaccination law.
Kennedy, the chief legal counsel for Children’s Health Defense, was in state Supreme Court in Albany last week for oral arguments in the other case, which challenges the vaccination law’s constitutionality.