A West Virginia judge has ordered the state to permit religious exemptions to its mandatory vaccination law—a decision the governor is celebrating as a “win for every family forced from school over their faith.”
The ruling, issued last Wednesday by Judge Michael Froble of the West Virginia Circuit Court of Raleigh County, found that the State Board of Education’s refusal to allow religious exemptions to the Compulsory Vaccination Law violates the Equal Protection for Religion Act.
West Virginia’s current vaccination statute requires that children receive immunizations for a list of diseases before attending “any of the schools of the state or a state-regulated childcare center” and states clearly that “[n]o person shall be allowed to enter school without at least one dose of each required vaccine.”
The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Miranda Guzman, a Raleigh County parent who sought to enroll her 4-year-old child in school but could not do so because the state offered no religious exemption to the vaccine mandate.
Guzman argued that her religious convictions prevent her from complying with the Compulsory Vaccination Law, and Wednesday’s ruling instructs the Board of Education not to bar her—or any similarly situated parent—from enrolling their children or allowing them to attend school.
The state’s Equal Protection for Religion Act, passed in 2023, bars the government from burdening a person’s religious beliefs unless doing so is absolutely necessary to achieve a compelling state interest.
Alongside the statute, Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued an executive order earlier this year empowering the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources to create a religious exemption process for parents seeking one. The Health Department issued religious exemption certificates to the plaintiffs, but the Board of Education declined to acknowledge them.
Research compiled in the “Religious Liberty in the States” report from the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy at the First Liberty Institute notes that West Virginia is one of only six states in the nation without a religious exemption for childhood vaccines. The others include California, Connecticut, Maine, Mississippi, and New York.
