Supreme Court Asked to Exempt California Schoolchild From Vaccination Mandate

On Sept. 9, a federal appeals court declined to halt the state policy.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Sept. 11, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

An advocacy group is urging the Supreme Court to allow a religious parent to opt her child out of California’s mandatory vaccination policy for schoolchildren.

The new application in We The Patriots USA v. Ventura Unified School District, docketed by the nation’s highest court on Sept. 19, was directed to Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees emergency appeals from California.

We The Patriots is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Caldwell, Idaho.

California’s position is that its vaccination mandate keeps children healthy and prevents the spread of dangerous illnesses.

The group filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on behalf of a woman identified as Jane Doe, who is seeking an exemption for her son from the vaccination mandate based on his personal beliefs.

The school district initially granted the son an exemption based on his personal beliefs but later revoked it. The school district has barred the son from attending school for the time being. His last full day of school attendance was in December 2024.

Doe applied for the exemption based on her understanding that the vaccines required by state law are “researched, developed, tested, and/or produced using cell lines artificially developed from aborted fetuses and contain products that could result in harm to a human recipient,” according to the application.

The Constitution’s First Amendment does not allow “California to exile children from public school because their parents seek to raise them in accordance with their religious beliefs,” the application states, citing the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor.

In that case, the high court ruled for parents in Maryland who, for religious reasons, wanted to opt their young children out of school storybooks that promote LGBT lifestyles.

“That principle protects parents’ right to opt their children out of LGBTQ+ school curricula. It also protects parents’ right to opt their children out of an act that would render them complicit in abortion,” the application reads.

On Sept. 9, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied the group’s request to pause an Aug. 15 order by U.S. District Judge André Birotte. The district judge rejected the group’s request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to suspend the vaccination policy.

We The Patriots had filed with the district court on May 22, asking it to block the enforcement of section 120335 of the California Health and Safety Code against the plaintiffs and other parents and children whose sincere religious beliefs prevent them from receiving the required immunizations.

That state law states that school districts in California may “not unconditionally admit any person as a pupil” unless he or she has been immunized against diphtheria, influenza, measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, rubella, tetanus, hepatitis B, chickenpox, and “any other disease deemed appropriate” by the state public health department.

The district court previously rejected a prior application for a temporary restraining order on June 17, finding that the plaintiffs failed to show that they would face irreparable harm without such an order, according to Birotte.

On Sept. 22, Kagan directed the school district to file a response by 4 p.m. on Oct. 1.

The fact that the Supreme Court asked the other side to respond to the application is “a small threshold victory,” We The People’s attorney, Cameron Atkinson of Harwinton, Connecticut, said in a post on X.

“It shows that our application was not so frivolous as to merit immediate denial,” he said.

The Epoch Times has reached out for comment to the Ventura Unified School District in California. No reply was received by publication time.