RICHMOND, Va. (CN) -A Fourth Circuit panel rejected a West Virginia family's religious challenge to school vaccine requirements on Wednesday, determining that the state law serves the public interest.  

"We live in a society that accords its citizens enormous benefits. In return, states can, in a measured way, require certain exactions and accommodations to the broader social interest," U.S. Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote for the majority. "West Virginia's compulsory vaccination law does exactly that. It is a legitimate exercise of the state's power to protect the health and well-being of school children."

West Virginia is one of only five states that prohibit religious exemptions for school vaccine mandates.

Krystle and Anthony Perry, suing individually and on behalf of their elementary school-aged child, argued the policy violates their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, claiming it requires them to use vaccines that scientists researched, tested and developed through the use of aborted fetal cells.

Joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Steven Agee, a George W. Bush appointee, Wilkinson ruled that a lower court erred in granting Perry's preliminary injunction allowing their daughter to reenroll in Virtual Academy, an online public school.

The suit asked judges to balance constitutionally protected religious rights with the power of states to protect public health - and specifically, to protect school-aged children from communicable diseases. 

Massachusetts first implemented school vaccine mandates in 1855. The Supreme Court backed the policy in the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, in which the court held that states can limit the rights of citizens when the condition imposed is essential to the safety, health, peace, good order and morals of a community.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed that position several times in the 20th century, including in Prince v. Massachusetts in 1944, where it held that the right to freely practice a religion does not entail the right to expose others to disease.

"This unbroken line of decisions resolves the case before us," Wilkinson said. "Because the law is neutral and generally applicable, the Perrys' free exercise rights do not relieve them of their obligation to comply with it."

The Perrys argued the policy is irrational as applied to their daughter, who seeks to learn virtually.

The government defendants countered that although this student may attend class online, virtual learners still take tests in person. They said legislators intended the policy to protect the general public's health.

Wilkinson also rejected claims that the law is not generally applicable because it doesn't account for homeschooled students, adults working in schools and students with medical exemptions. 

"West Virginia requires school children to get vaccinated because vaccination generally promotes their health and well-being. Nothing about that health decision disfavors religious beliefs," Wilkinson said. "Medical exemptions are thus categorically incomparable to conscientious exemptions of all stripes in terms of how they affect West Virginia's health interests."

U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer, a fellow Reagan appointee, dissented from Wilkinson, arguing the majority failed to analyze the specifics of the case, instead focusing on the policy broadly. 

"In this case, the mandatory vaccination law is not generally applicable as it does not apply to children who receive home instruction, to children who are educated in learning pods and to children who attend microschools," he said. "These exceptions are presumably made because the children's learning environment in those circumstances is remote and their exposure to other children is minimal."

"The Perrys' child is also educated at home," Niemeyer added, "and thus is in a similarly remote context with a similar risk because the child's exposure to other children would be similarly minimal."

Niemeyer also pointed to recent Supreme Court decisions which he said favor the Perrys. In the 2025 case Mahmoud v. Taylor, the majority held that laws requiring parents to choose between participating in public education or raising their children in accordance with their faith must survive strict scrutiny. 

"West Virginia absolutely has a compelling state interest to prevent the spread of infectious disease in order to protect the health and safety of the public, as the district court acknowledged and the majority emphasizes," Niemeyer said. "But the school officials have failed to show that the law's failure to make an exception for virtual students with a sincere religious objection to complying with the mandatory vaccination law is consistent with narrow tailoring when students similarly situated with regard to the risk addressed need not comply at all."

Wilkinson differentiated Mahmoud, which dealt with a Maryland school board's decision to require all students to learn from LGBTQ-inclusive books, from the West Virginia law. 

"The law is a public health measure, not an instrument of ideological indoctrination," Wilkinson said. "It does not expose children to values or beliefs that might be hostile to their parents' religious beliefs." 

The state policy requires students to receive vaccinations to prevent chickenpox, hepatitis B, measles, meningitis, mumps, polio and tetanus, among other diseases. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles cases spiked from 285 nationwide in 2024 to 2,255 in 2025.

Wilkinson emphasized that the court must consider everyone's rights. 

"Plaintiffs' rights are not the only things at issue here," Wilkinson said. "Parents and grandparents have their own interest in not seeing their children and grandchildren in school environments with significant numbers of unvaccinated peers."

The plaintiffs said homeschooling - the only option in West Virginia for children out of compliance with the mandate - isn't possible for them because the father is disabled and the mother works full time. 

Attorneys representing the Perrys and the government did not respond to a request for comment.

In his opinion, Wilkinson also took aim at the Trump administration's distrust of vaccines. 

"The fact that the executive branch of the federal government may be evincing skepticism to vaccinations does not require the enlistment of the judicial branch in an assault upon state vaccination requirements," Wilkinson said. "States remain free to recognize the weighty medical evidence supporting the value of vaccinations in safeguarding public health. Such determinations lie at the very heart of the states' police power."

Source: Courthouse News Service