Teen Takes On New York Over Vax Mandate — And Wins

A 16-year-old girl won in court on Tuesday after the public school system in New York denied her medical vaccine exemption.

A federal court sided with a girl, who is named only by the pseudonym Sarah Doe, after the public school system in New York repeatedly denied her a medical exemption, which she received from six different doctors and a nurse practitioner.

The court granted her medical exemption and said Sarah must be allowed to attend school, starting in September.

“I’m just happy to go to school and be given this opportunity,” Sarah said following the win. “Thank you everyone for coming, I appreciate all the support – it feels unreal.”

HISTORIC FEDERAL COURT RULING IN NY!

Sarah Doe WINS!!!

16-year-old Sarah Doe must be allowed back to school this September.

Her medical exemption to vaccination is granted in federal court today.

Case backed by @ChildrensHD

Here is Sarah in front of the courthouse pic.twitter.com/qcMintC9i0

— Teachers for Choice (@teacher_choice) August 12, 2025

New York is one of five states in the U.S. that do not allow religious exemptions for its vaccine mandates. The other states are California, Connecticut, Maine, and West Virginia — though West Virginia’s governor authorized religious and personal belief exemptions via executive action in 2025, effectively removing it from this list.

Since these remaining states have cracked down on religious exemptions, there have been an increasing number of reports of families saying they’ve been denied medical exemptions, too. In Sarah’s case, the court said the school was wrong, and the teen’s medical exemption is valid.

Sarah, who spoke to The Daily Wire back in May about her lawsuit, was advised by a number of medical professionals to skip her final dose of the Hepatitis B vaccination. This was after she developed severe autoimmune conditions, kidney issues, debilitating migraines, continuous rashes, and a diagnosis of a bleeding disorder where blood does not clot properly. All of the conditions started back in 2019, when New York stopped allowing religious exemptions, and Sarah got 18 vaccine doses over the span of two months so she could attend school.

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“Her back started hurting her, her whole spine,” Jane Doe, Sarah’s mother, told The Daily Wire. “We went for MRIs, she did cat scans – that’s where our life started with the doctors, all of a sudden the new norm was seeing doctors.”

“At one point, she did become septic, they had to put a stent in her to her kidney through her urethra and she was in the hospital, we had to pack her in ice one night because her temps just wouldn’t come down,” Jane continued. “It’s just her body responding to all those vaccines at once that just shut her down almost.”

Jane felt very strongly that she couldn’t give the last dose of the vaccine to her daughter and said she had no choice but to take legal action. In April, the family filed suit.

The family’s attorney, Sujata Gibson, said this case was about Sarah and her safety, but also about other children in states like New York that don’t allow religious exemptions. Further, while New York is supposed to allow medical exemptions, Gibson said that’s not what’s happening.

“The problem really is these New York State Department of Health regulations that were issued in 2019, that led to hundreds of children who had longstanding medical exemptions suddenly getting them revoked,” Gibson told The Daily Wire. “Many, many families have had to move out of town, get vaccinated against medical advice — some children have been severely harmed by that.”

Gibson said there’s legislation pending in New York that could fix this issue, called the Education for All Act. This would “reiterate the state’s existing law that says school districts aren’t allowed to overrule treating physicians,” the attorney said.

Gibson also floated the idea that the federal government could take action to remedy the problem. “If the state won’t fix this, we are just hoping that the federal government will intervene,” she said. “There are a lot of things the federal government could do. This is a square violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Children with disabilities are required to be accommodated and allowed to attend school. And what these school districts are doing is flat-out discriminatory and dangerous to their health.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally supports exemptions and actually filed suit in 2019 to challenge New York’s decision to rid religious exemptions. It’s unclear if HHS will put out any guidance on the matter.

Related: She Listened To Doctors About Which Vaccines To Get. Her School Kicked Her Out.