Amish Petition Supreme Court Over Alleged Religious Discrimination and Vaccine Fines

Amish Petition Supreme Court Over Alleged Constitutional Violations of Their Religious Freedom 

By Steven Middendorp

“New York has effectively prohibited the practice of the Amish faith within its borders,” according to a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court that asks the nation’s highest court to intervene. Three small, private Amish schoolhouses in rural New York were hit with $118,000 in fines for allowing unvaccinated Amish children to attend class.

The state law allows fines of $2,000 per day for each unvaccinated student who attends class. The schools were fined $118,000 in 2022, and that is the only stipulated fine so far, but it represents just one day of violations for the three schools that had a combined alleged 59 unvaccinated students attend class. If the state continued fining schools the full amount authorized by state law, they could face tens of millions of dollars in ruinous fines each school year, which would force their doors to close.

The petition was filed at the end of September 2026 in Miller v. McDonald and argues that New York’s lack of a l religious vaccine exemption is a violation of the Constitution’s free exercise of religion for Old Order Amish families.

New York allowed religious vaccine exemptions for more than 50 years before repealing the right in 2019 following a measles outbreak in the Orthodox Jewish communities in and around New York City. Sponsors of the bill described religious objections as “pretend” and “utter garbage.” Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) tracks available vaccine exemptions across the country, and New York is just one of five states that do not currently allow religious exemptions.

The Amish schools and families claim that requiring vaccinations would violate their sincerely held religious beliefs, which emphasize separation from worldly influences and full trust in God. Attorney Aaron Siri, who represents the schools and families, told the New York Post in August that the only way the Amish could pay the fines would be if the state confiscated their land. The schoolhouses are privately owned, receive no taxpayer dollars, and only hold 15-25 students each.

When the Amish plaintiffs and schools sued the state for alleged violations of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the lower courts disagreed. A federal district court and then the Second Circuit held that the statute is neutral and generally applicable under Employment Division v. Smith (1990) and thus subject only to rational-basis review, which it survives on public-health grounds.

In December 2025, the Supreme Court granted the Amish’s first petition, vacated the Second Circuit’s ruling, and sent the case back to the Second Circuit for reconsideration as a result of its decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025). That court ruling strengthened parents’ rights to direct the religious upbringing of their children and avoid school requirements that conflict with their faith, building on the court’s earlier decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder.

On remand, the Second Circuit ruled in favor of the state once again in June 2026. The court concluded that Mahmoud v. Taylor doesn’t apply to this scenario because the vaccine requirement “does not regulate what children are taught” and “does not require them to affirm any belief.” The latest Supreme Court petition poses three questions:

1.) “Whether, as applied to the Amish Petitioners, New York’s compulsion of permanent acts that are inconsistent with the religious beliefs and practices parents wish to instill in their children violates the Free Exercise Clause under Mahmoud.

2.) Whether, as applied to the Amish Petitioners, New York’s refusal to allow religious exemptions to a law that allows secular exemptions and other comparable secular activity violates the Free Exercise Clause.

3.) Whether Smith should be reconsidered.”

The petitioners argue that vaccination is permanent and irreversible, the Amish educate their children in private community schools on private land, and that homeschooling is not a practical or religiously acceptable alternative for these families.

The petition argues that the law is being applied selectively by the state and effectively targets religious communities.

“First, the State allows noncompliant nonvaccination through its lax enforcement efforts,” the petition states. “At least 66,000 students without a medical exemption remain unvaccinated, and New York has indicated that number may be as high as 97,900. Both figures dwarf the ‘tiny number of healthy Amish children’ at issue here. This rampant noncompliant nonvaccination does not ‘pose a lesser risk of transmission than [Petitioners’] proposed religious exercise.’”

The petition also points out that the law does not apply to teachers, aides, administrators, or any adults who work in or with schools. The plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that allowing these adults to interact with students while unvaccinated “presents the same claimed risk of transmission” as the Amish students who are not vaccinating for religious reasons. The attorneys say this is one example of a “comparable secular activity” that is treated more favorably than the religious exercise even though they both pose the same risk.

The state has argued in court that their application of the law “is neutral on its face, neither targeting religious belief nor singling it out for particularly harsh treatment.” There has been no comment from the state regarding the lack of a mandate for school employees

New York’s formal policy calls for excluding noncompliant students and authorizes fines against schools or principals who permit them to attend. The large, publicized civil penalties imposed on the three Amish schools have not been shown to be routinely applied to other school systems for noncompliance.

The most prominent civil penalty outside of the Amish community was for Congregation B’nai Yoel School, a private Jewish school, that was fined $141,500 for having at least 283 students in noncompliance after the 14-day grace period. There are no publicly documented examples of non-religious schools receiving fines despite the state’s own numbers, with as many as 97,900 unvaccinated students attending class across the state without any recognized exemption.

The plaintiffs’ counsel, including Siri from Siri & Glismtad and Hiram Sasser from  First Liberty Institute, have warned that the nearly 25,000 Amish who live in New York may have no choice but to flee to a new state if the Supreme Court does not  protect their rights and rule for them.