The United States Supreme Court Wednesday agreed to hear a request from New York City teachers to block a vaccine mandate over religious objections, despite Justice Sonia Sotomayor initially denying the request. 

In October 2021, Sotomayor denied a request from a group of New York City teachers challenging the city and state’s vaccine mandate for public school employees after a federal district court denied their challenge. Sotomayor had received the request because she oversees cases in the Second Circuit, where New York City sits. She denied the request unilaterally and without comment.

However, plaintiffs took the unusual route of submitting a second request to Justice Neil Gorsuch. Supreme Court rules allow a party to make a renewed request to any other justice after a denial from the justice who has jurisdiction over the lower courts involved in the case. The rules state, however, that such a renewed application is considered “not favored.”

It is speculated that the plaintiffs submitted a second request to Justice Gorsuch because last fall he wrote a dissent when the court denied a request to block Maine’s vaccine mandate. In the Maine case, a group of unvaccinated workers argued that the mandate violated their rights. However, there were significant differences between the two mandates, particularly the fact that the New York City mandate offers limited religious accommodations. 

In the plaintiffs’ renewed request to Gorsuch, plaintiffs argue that without an issuance by the Supreme Court of an emergency injunction, the plaintiffs will “lose either their religious (and bodily) integrity or their employment.” The request further adds that the religious accommodations offered in the vaccine mandate are too narrow.

The request is scheduled to be brought up for consideration in early March.