Amish ask Supreme Court to protect religious rights

Amish individuals and schools in New York asked the Supreme Court on Monday to protect their religious rights. They said state laws had wrongly compelled Amish schoolchildren to receive vaccinations to attend Amish schools, violating their sincerely held religious beliefs. The Amish simply wish to be left alone to practice their religion in peace, said Aaron Siri, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. If the courts rule in favor of New York, the Amish will be forced to flee the state and live out their beliefs elsewhere, Siri said. New York has the fifth largest Amish population in the United States, with more than 25,000 Amish living there, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.

What has the state said? In previous court filings, New York said the vaccination requirements aimed to prevent outbreaks of diseases like measles. The state said it amended its vaccination requirements in 2019 after legislatures found immunization rates in some schools had fallen below the rates needed to keep communities safe. Additionally, it updated the law soon after New York became the epicenter of the nation's worst measles outbreak in a quarter-century.

How did the case get here? New York granted religious exemptions to its school vaccination requirements for more than 50 years, according to First Liberty Institute, which represents the Amish. It said the state’s 2019 amendments repealed religious exemptions for vaccine mandates for children attending school. Then in 2022, the state took enforcement action against the Amish in this case.

Following religious beliefs, the Amish have educated their children in private Amish schools without vaccinations for hundreds of years, First Liberty said. The Amish unsuccessfully asked a federal district court and 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to protect their religious rights. In 2025, the Supreme Court ordered the 2nd Circuit to reconsider the case, but the appeals court ruled against the Amish for a second time. The Amish’s latest appeal has again asked the Supreme Court to fix the 2nd Circuit’s errors, First Liberty said.