The Supreme Court denied a request by a group of New York City public school teachers to suspend the vaccination mandate for employees who did not receive a religious exemption.
The appeal was directed to Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who handles cases in the region. The magistrate had already rejected a previous challenge, presented in October. And on Friday she also denied this request without providing an explanation, which is the usual procedure of the court. She, too, did not ask the city for a response, another sign that the request for a warrant would likely fail.
Judge Sotomayor’s decision comes just as a group of municipal workers who refuse to abide by the vaccination mandate launched a last-minute effort to avoid being fired on Friday. Mayor Eric Adams reported earlier that several employees finally agreed to get vaccinated in order not to face firing.
The city employees, arguing that the rules violate their “fundamental religious and constitutional rights,” have asked a federal judge in Brooklyn to temporarily bar the city from firing unvaccinated workers.
However, several similar lawsuits brought by city workers against former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vaccination mandate have failed in court.
As many as 3,000 city workers are set to lose their jobs Friday for refusing to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, in what could be the nation’s most drastic example of a workforce reduction tied to a vaccination requirement.
Although the mandate has proven its effectiveness, according to city statistics. About 95% of the 370,000 municipal workers have received at least one dose of the vaccine, an increase of 84% since de Blasio issued the measure in October of last year.
Some 38,400 city workers have received at least one dose of the vaccine since the city mandate was announced in October. Additionally, so far more than 85% of the city’s adults are fully vaccinated in part thanks to city mandates.
The 3,000 workers on the verge of losing their jobs would represent less than 1 percent of the city’s workforce, but it is still believed to be the largest reduction in workers in the nation in response to a vaccination mandate. Another roughly 1,000 new city employees must show proof of two doses by Friday or they too could be laid off.
In addition to the 3,000 workers who could be laid off, another 9,000 city workers are also unvaccinated but have used waivers or are working with unions to avoid being laid off.
In all, about 13,000 workers have applied for waivers, which are known as reasonable accommodations, and 54% of those applications have been processed so far, according to city officials. About 2,100 were approved and 4,910 were denied.
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