Parents and students file federal complaint against San Diego Public Schools over religious objections to COVID-19 vaccine

SAN DIEGO – Families of four San Diego Unified School District students have filed an amended complaint in a federal lawsuit against SDUSD and its Board of Education for violation of their rights under the First Amendment by imposing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

After first imposing the mandate in September 2021, the board had delayed implementing it but, in March, the board reinstated it. The mandate still offers no possibility of an exemption for students with religious objections. Thomas More Society attorneys filed the complaint on April 29 in United States District Court, Southern District of California, on behalf of the high school students and their families – stating that the mandate violates their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

“Our clients hold sincere religious beliefs that prevent them from taking any of the currently available COVID-19 vaccinations because they were either made or tested using aborted fetal cells,” explained Paul Jonna, partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP and Thomas More Society Special Counsel. “However, SDUSD is completely ignoring our clients’ religious protections under the First Amendment by requiring that they comply with the illegal vaccine mandate, while not imposing the mandate on the vast majority of students and allowing medical exemptions and religious exemptions for staff.”

Despite the pleas of thousands of parents, the SDUSD Board of Education voted last fall to require students 16 and older to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 20, 2021, in order to attend in-person classes. The Thomas More Society first filed this case, Doe v. San Diego Unified School District, on behalf of a student whose religious beliefs prevented her from taking the vaccine. The lawsuit detailed that the school district on any given day exempts more than 85% of students for reasons ranging from medical accommodations to administrative convenience (for students who had turned 16 one day after the cutoff).

Following a series of lower court rulings, Thomas More Society attorneys filed an application for emergency relief with the United States Supreme Court in December 2021. However, the court denied the application citing “changed circumstances” after the board voted in February 2022 to delay implementation of the vaccine mandate. Shortly after the Supreme Court denied review, SDUSD voted to reinstate virtually the same mandate, effective summer 2022.

Jonna noted that the school district’s vaccine mandate, despite being postponed until the summer, remains intact and contains the same constitutional infirmities. Meanwhile, the school district continues to refuse to accept sincerely held religious objections to the vaccine.

“SDUSD’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate was unconstitutional and unjustified from its inception. But the data available now makes it more clear than ever that SDUSD has no basis – in law or science – to refuse to offer religious exemptions,” Jonna said. “Eleven Ninth Circuit judges previously ruled in this case that SDUSD’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate is unconstitutional. This mandate is unconstitutional, both facially and as applied, and is causing real harm to real students – with no real scientific benefit to anybody. As Plaintiffs’ preeminent experts make clear, mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for children is absurd public health policy.”

Jonna also noted that the Supreme Court’s reaction to the emergency relief petition to the original plaintiff demonstrated that the High Court is watching the case, and their response indicated that they may be open to providing emergency relief in the future.

“We will be seeking injunctive relief at the federal district court promptly, and our legal team is poised and ready to seek appellate relief at the Ninth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court if necessary, assured Jonna.

Submitted by the Thomas More Society.