2 days ago
Defying Morrisey executive order, WV board of ed directs schools to follow existing vaccines law
A child under 12 years old receives a dose of Pfizer vaccine as part of the COVID-19 immunization campaign on Jan. 18, 2022 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. (Pedro Vilela | Getty Images)
West Virginia school officials will instruct public schools to follow the state's existing vaccine laws, going against an existing executive order from Gov. Patrick Morrisey that students be exempted from the requirements based on their religious beliefs about the shots.
At its regular meeting Wednesday, the state Board of Education signed off on directing Superintendent Michele Blatt to issue the vaccine mandate guidance to county school boards.
West Virginia state law allows only medical exemptions to school-required vaccines, making the policy one of the strongest in the country. Morrisey issued an executive order earlier this year requiring the state to allow religious exemptions.
Speaking at the school board meeting, Sean Whelan, Morrisey's general counsel, told the school board there's been a misunderstanding about the basis of Morrisey's executive order. The governor isn't second guessing science or defying a law passed by the Legislature, he said.
'Instead, he is reading that vaccine law together with another law, the Equal Protection for Religion Act of 2023, which prohibits government action that substantially burdens a person's exercise of religion unless it serves a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of achieving that interest,' he said. 'That language mirrors the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which federal courts across the country have described as a super statute, displacing the normal operation of otherwise applicable federal laws.'
The executive order applies only to the state health officials under Morrisey's purview, and the governor is not ordering the Board of Education or county school boards to do anything, Whelan said.
'But he is asking for your partnership and support in applying the Equal Protection for Religion. Act that has been on the books since 2023 and until he came into office, wasn't applied,' Whelan said. 'That law should be applied as written, and when it is, it requires the religious exemptions to compulsory vaccination that the health department provides.'
State lawmakers this year did not pass Senate Bill 460, which would have made the religious exemptions part of state law. Despite the bill not passing, Morrisey's executive order stands. The state Department of Health had approved approximately 300 religious exemptions as of late last month.
The difference between the governor's order and state law has led to a fractured response from schools. Blatt issued a memo May 2 to county superintendents recommending that students not be allowed to attend schools next year without the required vaccinations but rescinded the guidance before the end of the day at the governor's request.
Some private and religious schools opted not to follow the governor's order.
Last month the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia and legal advocacy organization Mountain State Justice filed a lawsuit asking the Kanawha County Circuit to compel the state's Department of Health and Bureau for Public Health to stop complying with the executive order.
In a statement Wednesday, Morrisey spokesman Alex Lanfranconi said the school board is 'trampling on the religious liberties of children, ignoring the state's religious freedom law, and trying to make the state an extreme outlier on vaccine policy when there isn't a valid public policy reason to do so. This decision isn't about public health — it's about making West Virginia more like liberal states such as California and New York,' he said.
The Department of Health will continue to grant religious exemptions, he said.
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