A West Virginia judge on Thursday allowed the children of three families in one county to attend school this fall without required vaccinations, the latest move in a showdown between Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey and the state Board of Education.
Raleigh County Circuit Judge Michael Froble issued a preliminary injunction less than a month before the start of the new school year. The ruling involves children whose parents sued and are claiming religious exemptions to a long-standing school vaccine mandate.
Morrisey issued an executive order upon taking office allowing such religious exemptions. But the board voted last month to direct public schools to ignore the order and instead follow school vaccine requirements that are laid out in state law and prohibit the exemptions.
Froble's ruling came in a lawsuit that was filed June 24. The injunction was limited to the three children of the plaintiffs who sued the state and local departments of education, and has no impact statewide.
Morrisey, who served as West Virginia’s attorney general from 2013 until he was sworn in as governor in January, said he believes the religious exemptions to vaccinations should already be permitted under a 2023 law passed by the Legislature called the Equal Protection for Religion Act.
“Today’s ruling is another legal victory in the fight for religious freedom,” Morrisey said in a statement. “No family should be forced to choose between their faith and their children’s education, which is exactly what the unelected bureaucrats on the State Board of Education are attempting to force West Virginians to do.”
The board said in a statement that it was disappointed by the ruling and that its members "will decide next steps in the near future.”
The original lawsuit doesn’t explain what specific religion the families follow. It was filed on behalf of parent Miranda Guzman, who identifies as a Christian and said that altering her child's natural immune system through required vaccinations “would demonstrate a lack of faith in God” and “disobey the Holy Spirit's leading.” The suit was later amended to add two other parents.
Most religious denominations and groups support medical vaccinations, according to the American Bar Association.
Vaccination mandates for public schools are seen as a way of to prevent the spread of once-common childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, whooping cough, chickenpox and polio. But due in part to vaccine hesitancy, some preventable and deadly diseases are on the rise. For example, the U.S. is having its worst year for measles spread in more than three decades.
Medical experts have long heralded West Virginia’s school vaccination policy as one of the most protective in the country for children. State law requires children to receive vaccines for chickenpox, hepatitis B, measles, meningitis, mumps, diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough before starting school.
Several states grant medical exemptions from school vaccinations. At least 30 states have religious freedom laws modeled after the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton. It allows federal regulations that interfere with religious beliefs to be challenged.
On Wednesday, a Kanawha County judge dismissed a separate lawsuit against Morrisey’s executive order because it didn't give the required 30 days' notice prior to being filed. That lawsuit, filed on behalf of two Cabell County parents, will be allowed to be refiled. It alleged that only the Legislature, not the governor, has the authority to make such decisions.
During their regular session that ended in April, lawmakers failed to pass legislation that was introduced to allow religious exemptions for school vaccine mandates.
