The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an appeal by a group of New York City public school teachers seeking to block a COVID vaccination mandate-19, arguing that it violated their religious freedom.
New York Judge Sonia Sotomayor rejected the emergency appeal in Washington DC yesterday, the same day that the deadline for city employees comply with the mandate or face losing their jobs.
Sotomayor did not offer an explanation, which is standard court procedure, she noted New York Post. The appeal had been filed on Tuesday by 15 workers from the Department of Education (DOE ) of NYC, who claimed that the city was violating their religious freedoms by not accepting their exemption claims.
The City requires that such applications be endorsed by religious leaders. For example, teachers said the city would not accept an exemption from Catholics because Pope Francis has urged his faithful to get vaccinated.
The appeal came after numerous objections to the mandate were overturned of vaccination of the teachers of former Mayor Bill de Blasio. The city then bowed to the teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), to allow exemptions for medical or religious reasons in NYC, the largest school district in the country.
The mayor Eric Adams stressed that he would go ahead with the dismissal of almost 4, 000 of the approximately 39,000 municipal employees of the city that until the term of yesterday they have not been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
In the case of teachers and police officers, the The situation is aggravated because since the pandemic there have been massive resignations in those lines in NYC.