New York’s Amish community of approximately 25,000 people has stated that continued enforcement of the state’s school vaccine mandate that does not allow a religious belief exemption could drive Amish families out of New York permanently. Attorneys for the Amish families say the accumulating fines have already put the community at risk of losing their land, and the Amish plan to soon ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.1
The lawsuit involves three private Amish schools, Shady Lane, Pleasant View, and Dygert Road School. Together they have been assessed $118,000 in fines for their failure to comply with the state’s mandatory vaccination requirements due to their sincerely held religious beliefs about vaccination. The state has fined each school $2,000 per violation.2
Following a measles outbreak among Orthodox Jewish congregations in Rockland County, in 2019, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation removing the religious belief exemption from New York’s mandatory vaccination law for school attendance. New York is now one of five states, along with California, Connecticut, Maine, and West Virginia, that does not permit religious belief exemptions to school vaccine requirements. Under New York’s current vaccination requirements, children attending daycare and kindergarten through twelfth grade must receive up to 36 doses of 12 vaccines (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Hib, pneumococcal, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningococcal).3 4
Amish Families Sue NY Department of Health and Education
On June 2, 2023, Amish parents and school administrators filed a lawsuit, Miller v. McDonald, against the New York State Department of Health and the New York State Department of Education, arguing that stripping families of the religious belief vaccine exemption violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion. The case has been before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit twice, with the Amish families losing each time.5
In December 2025, the Supreme Court vacated the Second Circuit’s earlier ruling and directed the court to revisit the matter in light of the Court’s own decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor.6 Mahmoud arose from a Maryland school district’s refusal to allow parents to excuse their children from lessons that were contrary to their faith. The Court held that the government cannot require children to receive instruction that overrides parental religious objections, and that parents hold that protection regardless of whether their children attend public or private school.7
Second Circuit Rules Against the Amish Again
On June 30, the Second Circuit ruled against the families for the second time. The court found the vaccine mandate to be a neutral law of general applicability, the category of law that under Employment Division v. Smith requires only rational basis review, the most forgiving and lenient constitutional standard.
The court wrote that the mandate:
does not regulate what children are taught, does not require them to affirm any belief, does not expose them to state-selected instruction contrary to their parents’ faith, and does not enlist school officials to displace parental religious formation.
Therefore, the burden on the Amish families “may be serious, but it is not the kind of state interference with a child’s religious development that triggered strict scrutiny in Yoder or Mahmoud.”8
The Amish families argued the mandatory vaccination law is not truly neutral when New York still allows medical exemptions while rejecting religious ones. The court dismissed that argument, finding the medical exemptions were distinguishable because they require documented proof, must be renewed each year, and cover only specific vaccines rather than the full schedule.9
Road to the Supreme Court
Hiram Sasser, the attorney representing the Amish families, argued the case is ultimately a measure of how much space the country is willing to make for communities that live by a different set of rules.
Sasser questioned:
Have we gotten to a place where we aren’t going to make room for the Amish anymore? When you think of Americana—apple pie, fireworks—the Amish are on that list. They’re part of the American fabric. They’re a good litmus test of our religious liberty and our tolerance.10
Mark Dewalt, PhD, a professor of educational research at Winthrop University who has studied the Amish community’s approach to medicine, explained:
The main concern with vaccinations for some Amish is that they should put their trust in God rather than science.11
Ezra Wengerd, one of the Amish plaintiffs, put his convictions in writing in a handwritten letter provided to reporters:
We, as a peace loving religious group, are sincerely sorry that we are causing the state a prob. We are indeed grateful to the state of NY for the many privileges freedoms and protections they have blessed us with, for many years. Our Almighty God wants us to fully put our faith and trust in Him. Which is in conflict to put our trust in vaccines. We are also commanded to not be conformed to this world.12
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Click here to view References:1 New York Post. Amish threaten mass exodus from New York over vaccine fight which is heading to the Supreme Court. Aug. 26, 2026.
2 Ibid.
3 Miller v. McDonald, No. 24-681 (2d Cir. June 30, 2026).
4 New York State Department of Health. New York State Immunization Requirements for School Attendance.
5 Miller v. McDonald, No. 24-681 (2d Cir. June 30, 2026).
6 U.S. Supreme Court. Order, Miller v. McDonald, No. 25-133. Dec. 8, 2025.
7 Mahmoud v. Taylor, 145 S.Ct. 2332 (2025).
8 Miller v. McDonald, No. 24-681 (2d Cir. June 30, 2026).
9 Ibid.
10 New York Post. Amish threaten mass exodus from New York over vaccine fight which is heading to the Supreme Court. Aug. 26, 2026.
11 Dewalt M. Buchanan County, Iowa: Amish and vaccinations. Des Moines Register Feb. 28, 2015.
12 New York Post. Amish threaten mass exodus from New York over vaccine fight which is heading to the Supreme Court. Aug. 26, 2026.
4 Responses
Amen! Don’t give up or give in! you are absolutely right, put your faith in God!
I will be praying for your community.
This is modern day religious persecution. And in our nation we have that limitation of govt powers to not infringe on religious beliefs and convictions, though now corrupted. NYS is testing the limits and has gotten away with removing the religious exemption for employment causing irreparable harm for individuals and families not willing to compromise sincerely held religious beliefs. The Amish Community is to be commended and admired for not compromising. I pray that SCOTUS will rule for them differently than they ruled against NY health care employees. This will then cover all those other families who have had to remove their children from their choice of schools in NYS for the only education choice left in home education.
Big government is going to do, what big government always does. Discriminate, pick winners and losers, redistribute other peoples tax money. They don’t produce anything.
The pharmasuetical complex paid those politicians for more vaccine customers, and that is what the politicians are delivering; more customers. They don’t give a damn about anyone’s rights. Money is their only god.
One ponders how bold the people writing the tickets and attempting to enforce the fines would be if their entire way of life was about to be destroyed for doing so. Sometimes the only way to fight fire is with fire. Playing a dangerous game. Free people will not comply.
The state authorities would be more than thrilled to have all that pristine land to hand to their insider developers. The lawyers and judges would be more than thrilled to accept the bribe money to get there. That’s probably the underlying reason for all of this in the first place.
NY has a problem pushing their test case vaccine punishment on the Amish – what a disgrace. Think the table should be turned and put some of those NY leaders in prison for their anti-liberty behaviors. Vaccines are poison and just because people are making tons of money off of them does not mean going after the main test group (Amish) who show everyone that is researching you don’t need the vaccination poisons and that by not being vaccinated one is healthier than otherwise. Time for a rod of iron to be used on the NY leaders pushing their unsafe and ineffective poisons on the populace.