- Supreme Court refuses to review Maine healthcare workers’ religious exemption case, denying them recourse after being fired for unvaccinated status.
- Courts increasingly dismiss challenges to vaccine mandates as “moot,” eroding religious freedom protections.
- Lawyers and advocacy groups decry the ruling as part of a pattern stifling religious dissent and accountability for officials.
- Plaintiffs argued Maine’s 2021 mandate violated constitutional rights but faced dismissals after the state repealed rules in 2023.
- Four states now deny religious exemptions for school vaccines, sparking nationwide calls for federal religious liberty protections.
On June 16, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case of seven Maine healthcare workers fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccines due to religious objections. By sidestepping a ruling on the merits, the Court let stand lower court decisions that dismissed the case as “moot” after Maine repealed its mandate in 2023. This non-decision has intensified debates over individual liberties, religious accommodation and the reach of federal power—a fight that underscores a growing national rift between public health authority and personal freedoms.
The case pits Maine’s regulatory overreach against frontline healthcare workers who contend that their constitutional rights were violated. Behind the legal jargon lies a simpler question: Can states force vaccinations, stripping away exemptions long recognized under U.S. law?
Judicial reluctance to protect religious liberties
“The reality is that no federal appellate court has recognized a constitutional or statutory right to a religious exemption from vaccine mandates—not for healthcare workers, not for anyone,” declared California attorney Rick Jaffe, a constitutional law expert, in an interview. His blunt assessment cuts to the core of the Supreme Court’s tacit endorsement of state vaccine mandates.
New York attorney Sujata Gibson, representing plaintiffs in secular cases, emphasized a nationwide strategy: “States repeal mandates to moot lawsuits and dismiss them, sidestepping accountability.” In Maine’s case, Liberty Counsel—a religious liberty advocacy organization—argued the 2023 repeal was “suspicious timing” to avoid facing constitutional scrutiny. The First Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, citing the mandate’s practical irrelevance post-pandemic.
Yet legal scholars note the implications for future conflicts. “Courts’ reluctance to weigh in here sets a dangerous precedent,” Gibson warned. Cases seeking damages for unlawful firings cannot be mooted by policy changes, she stressed. “This state’s actions caused real harm. People lost jobs and reputations. That’s just brushed aside?”
The case of Maine’s frontline heroes
The saga began in 2021, when Governor Janet Mills imposed a sweeping vaccine mandate on healthcare workers, applying to hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies. Three Maine doctors were suspended for issuing vaccine religious waivers or prescribing treatments like ivermectin, framing their actions as “anti-science” under the mandate. Meanwhile, nurses and aides faced abrupt terminations when they declined vaccinations for religious reasons.
Among them were seven workers represented by Liberty Counsel, who filed suit under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections. They also cited Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to accommodate religious practices unless they pose undue hardship.
Initially blocked by a federal district court, the case found fleeting hope at the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the lower court and permitted discovery. Yet within weeks, Mills’ administration rescinded the mandate, prompting the First Circuit to dismiss the case as moot in 2024. The Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene has left plaintiffs without resolution—now working to rebuild their careers in an industry that once deemed them heroes.
The constitutional crossroads: Liberty vs. public safety
“Competing tensions between religious or other individual liberties and the state’s interest in public safety” define this clash, observed Vermont attorney John Klar. Courts appear “deferential to public health authorities,” he noted, allowing state actors to justify mandates without concrete proof of necessity.
Maine’s 2019 law, which predated the pandemic, eliminated religious exemptions for vaccinations altogether—a move that lawyers argue violates Sherbert v. Vencil (1963), mandating exemptions unless they impose a “compelling state interest.” Yet public health agencies have leveraged their scientific authority to dismiss dissent. “The CDC’s opinion seems to carry more weight than the Constitution itself,” Klar added.
The case recalls Justice Neil Gorsuch’s 2021 dissent, which found Maine’s approach “arbitrary” given other states’ accommodation of religious beliefs. His plea for judicial oversight went unheeded this time, despite Maine’s 2023 repeal of the mandate paving a path for settled science to dominate legal norms.
Broader implications and calls to action
Outcry has grown alongside Maine’s case. Four states—Maine, California, New York and Connecticut—now deny religious exemptions for school vaccines, prompting a coalition of 40 groups to demand federal intervention via a White House letter. “Religious exemptions are under threat,” Gibson asserted, pointing to post-pandemic momentum by state lawmakers to restrict them further.
Healthcare workers like Alicia Lowe, one of the original plaintiffs, have received job offers from former employers post-repeal—yet the stigma endured by these professionals lingers. “Compensation for wrongful termination is trivial compared to the damage to a career,” noted Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, who called for accountability for Mills’ administration.
Historically, the U.S. has balanced competing interests—public safety against religious freedom—since at least the 1905 Supreme Court decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. Yet today’s strife reflects a modern erosion of procedural safeguards, argues historian and health defender Dr. Andrew Kiremidjian. “The pandemic accelerated a shift toward centralized public health mandates without real oversight. Maine’s workers are casualties of that shift.”
A precarious future for healthcare choice
The Supreme Court’s silence leaves unresolved the question of whether religious accommodation is a constitutional right—or a negotiable privilege. As states gradually revoke vaccine mandates, dissenters now face an uneven legal landscape.
For Liberty Counsel and advocates, the fight continues. “This administration caused real harm,” Staver asserted. “It’s time for Congress to pass federal religious freedom protections, ensuring states cannot override constitutional rights so callously.”
In the widening chasm between public health imperatives and individual freedoms, Maine’s case stands as both a cautionary tale and a catalyst. Will America’s courts uphold the First Amendment, or will emotional public health campaigns further marginalize religious dissent? The answer may define the scope of liberty for generations.
Sources for this article include:
ChildrensHealthDefense.org
LC.org
PressHerald.com
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