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A West Virginia judge issued a preliminary injunction on July 24, 2025, instructing West Virginia schools to honor the religious exemptions to mandated school vaccines of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. This swift action enables the students represented in the case to start their upcoming school year on schedule.
As ICAN supporters will surely remember, shortly after West Virginia parents started receiving religious exemptions issued by the West Virginia Department of Health, the West Virginia Board of Education announced that it would refuse to honor these exemptions.
ICAN’s legal team promptly sued West Virginia’s Board of Education and the court just granted a preliminary injunction. With the injunction now granted, the children in the lawsuit—three high school seniors and one preschooler—can attend the upcoming school year without interruption while the case proceeds on the merits.
West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey called the injunction a “big victory for religious liberty” in a post on X, stating that he “will continue to defend our 2023 Equal Protection for Religion law so that no child in the state is denied an education based on their religious beliefs.” West Virginia’s Equal Protection for Religion Act (ERPA) mirrors the First Amendment and prohibits the state from substantially burdening “a person’s exercise of freedom of religion.”
With this win, ICAN hopes that Board of Education will quickly see the error of its ways and honor all religious exemptions. But if it doesn’t, expect that we will keep you posted on more lawsuits!
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