‘Really Bad Blow’: U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Hear Los Angeles Schools COVID Vaccine Case

The case is over for now. The precedent is the real story.

This article originally appeared on The Defender and was republished with permission.

Guest post by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal challenging the constitutionality of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The court rejected the case without comment, upholding a 2025 federal appeals court ruling dismissing the lawsuit.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal challenging the constitutionality of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The court rejected the case without comment, upholding a 2025 federal appeals court ruling dismissing the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in 2021 by Health Freedom Defense Fund and LAUSD employees with California Educators for Medical Freedom, alleged LAUSD’s vaccine mandate violated their fundamental rights to reject medical treatment.

The mandate resulted in more than 1,000 employees losing their jobs.

In July 2025, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier dismissal of the lawsuit, ruling that it was reasonable for LAUSD to think the vaccines protected public health, based on comments by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health authorities.

Τhe 9th Circuit also found that LAUSD had a right to mandate the COVID-19 shots, even if the vaccines didn’t provide immunity or prevent transmission.

Michael Kane, director of advocacy for Children’s Health Defense, called the Supreme Court’s decision “surprising,” and said the lower court’s ruling creates a potentially dangerous precedent for unvaccinated employees in any industry.

“It is so incredibly scary what this precedent now is,” Kane said. “It’s a really bad blow to fired unvaccinated workers and to our liberties in general.”

‘Heartbreaking’

The 9th Circuit based its July 2025 ruling on Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1905 Supreme Court ruling that a state could mandate a vaccine for all of its residents if a rational basis exists for determining the mandate is necessary to mitigate a public health emergency.

In December 2025, the plaintiffs in the LAUSD appealed the ruling. They argued that LAUSD’s mandate violated the due process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments.

The plaintiffs challenged the court’s use of the Jacobson ruling as precedent, arguing that “a shot that does not prevent disease, which only reduces the symptoms of disease, should not be controlled by the vaccine-related decision in Jacobson.”

But the Supreme Court disagreed.

Scott Street, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said:

“We are especially disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to weigh in. Many judges want to move on from the pandemic. But it is not too late to correct their misinterpretation of Jacobson nor too early to guard against the threats to freedom that will surely come during the next emergency.”

Leslie Manookian, president and founder of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, called the Supreme Court’s decision “heartbreaking.”

“There’s either unbelievable fear and lack of courage surrounding this issue, or else, service to some other greater agenda,” Manookian said. She suggested that courts may not wish to challenge the multi-billion-dollar biosecurity industry, as that would implicate both Big Pharma and the federal government.

Courts still using 1905 Supreme Court ruling as binding precedent

LAUSD, the second-largest public school district in the U.S., began mandating the COVID-19 shots for all employees in August 2021. The school gave employees until Oct. 15, 2021, to either get fully vaccinated or apply for a medical or religious exemption.

Under the policy, even exempt employees could be excluded from the workplace if accommodations could not be made to ensure their presence did not pose a “risk to the health and safety of others.”

The policy led the plaintiffs to sue the district in 2021. Top LAUSD officials and board members were among the plaintiffs. The case subsequently followed a circuitous path through federal courts.

According to the plaintiffs’ original complaint, because the COVID-19 vaccine only reduced symptoms and didn’t prevent the spread of the disease, it was technically a medical treatment and not a “vaccine” — and therefore could not be mandated. The shot also posed serious health risks, the plaintiffs said.

In September 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rejected their argument and dismissed the case.

However, in June 2024, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit overturned the dismissal. In a 2-1 decision, the 9th Circuit agreed with the plaintiffs, finding that the Jacobson precedent didn’t apply because the COVID-19 shots didn’t prevent infection and transmission of the disease.

LAUSD had, by this time, rescinded its vaccine mandate in September 2023, after initial oral arguments before the 9th Circuit.

The three-judge panel’s ruling sent the case back to the lower court that initially dismissed it. However, the school district requested that a full panel of 9th Circuit judges review the ruling instead. This resulted in the 9th Circuit’s July 2025 ruling by an 11-member “en banc” panel.

“En banc” refers to a session in which all judges of a federal appellate court hear a case together. It is reserved for unusually complex or significant cases of public interest.

The full panel’s ruling wasn’t unanimous. In the dissenting opinion, the judges wrote:

“The majority’s opinion comes perilously close to giving the government carte blanche to require a vaccine or even medical treatment against people’s will so long as it asserts — even if incorrectly — that it would promote ‘public health and safety.’”

In the majority opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Mark J. Bennett said Jacobson set a legal precedent for the constitutionality of mandating vaccines if they are important for public health and safety. If the LAUSD — and agencies like the CDC — believed the vaccines would protect public health and safety, it was within its rights to mandate them.

Street criticized the continued use of the Jacobson ruling as a binding precedent.

“In 2019, it would have been impossible to imagine that the Supreme Court’s 1905 opinion in Jacobson would be turned into some bedrock piece of constitutional law, something that would be used to kick people out of court. The 9th Circuit panel in this case was one of the few panels that understood Jacobson correctly,” Street said.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs cited two other Supreme Court rulings that upheld bodily autonomy.

These cases included Cruzan v. Director of Missouri Department of Health, a 1990 ruling finding that a patient has the right to refuse life-saving medical treatment under the 14th Amendment, and Sell v. United States, a 2023 ruling finding that the Constitution allows the federal government to forcibly medicate a defendant, but only in limited circumstances based on a four-part test.

Manookian contrasted the Supreme Court’s reluctance to hear cases challenging vaccine mandates with its ruling last year in Mahmoud v. Taylor, where the court found that a Maryland school district’s policy of not allowing religious opt-outs to a school curriculum was unconstitutional.

“It’s okay for parents to direct the educational upbringing of their children with respect to their religious beliefs, but when it comes to our own personal private medical choices, as long as the state claims a public interest, you have no right? It’s ridiculous,” Manookian said.

Federal government ‘beholden to special interests’

Although the lawsuit challenging the LAUSD’s mandate is now effectively defeated, Street said that legal challenges to vaccine mandates will continue.

“Our clients know that day will come,” Street said. “It may not be during our lifetimes, but that does not mean we will stop fighting to correct the law.”

Manookian said there are still some “extremely promising” cases in U.S. federal courts challenging vaccine mandates on religious grounds, and some may yet end up before the Supreme Court.

However, she suggested that a potentially more effective way to challenge vaccine mandates is to take action at the state and local levels. She cited Idaho’s Medical Freedom Act, which she helped pass last year. The law prohibits most medical mandates, including vaccine mandates.

Some other states, including Arizona, are now considering similar legislation.

“There’s a very reasonable, rational argument to be made that the federal government is so beholden to special interests — all aspects of it — that it’s not going to be the answer to our efforts,” Manookian said.

“Local legislators, especially in the small- and medium-sized states, are very aware of the incredible violation of civil liberties that occurred during COVID, and have awoken to the fact that medical authorities lie, are beholden to special interests and do not always have you and your children’s best interests at heart.”

Related articles in The Defender

• Employees Can Sue L.A. Schools Over COVID Vaccine Mandate Because Shots Don’t Prevent Transmission, Appeals Court Rules

• Los Angeles Schools Drop COVID Vaccine Mandate — What’s Next for Fired Employees Who Sued the District?

• Teachers Sue LA School District Over COVID Vaccine Mandate

• Idaho Governor Signs Law Prohibiting Vaccine Mandates

• Arizona Medical Freedom Bill Goes to Senate After Successful House Vote

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