Supreme Court rejects legal battle over New York's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers P3

By Melissa Quinn

Updated on: June 29, 2026

Source: CBS News

Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,

The 2nd Circuit, they said, "permitted compliance with contrary state laws to excuse noncompliance with Title VII. This cannot be the law, and the Nation's Charter demands a different outcome."

But the healthcare facilities argued that state law did not forbid employers from providing any religious accommodation, only "complete exemptions" on religious grounds.

The rule "did not prohibit the healthcare respondents from granting any accommodation whatsoever to petitioners. It merely prohibited the particular accommodation on which petitioners insisted: namely, a complete exemption," they wrote in a Supreme Court filing.

Hochul and other state officials, meanwhile, told the high court that the state's vaccine rule doesn't prohibit all religious accommodations. Instead, it allowed employers to offer options that moved unvaccinated workers into roles that wouldn't expose personnel, patients or nursing home residents to COVID-19 if they were infected.

"The rule thus allowed religious accommodations, albeit not petitioners' preferred accommodation, in accordance with Title VII," they argued in a filing. "When the rule's scope is properly understood, this case does not present any question about the validity of a state law that, unlike the rule here, prohibits employers from providing any religious accommodations whatsoever."

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