CHD Seeks Emergency Order To Keep Teens Needing Religious Exemptions in School

Holding Governments and Schools Accountable if They Undermine Constitutional Rights, Bodily Integrity, Informed Consent and Due Process Rights

February 1, 2026 Betsy Combier ADVOCATZ 0

The Children’s Health Defense® is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Our mission is ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure. We will restore and protect the health of children by eliminating environmental exposures, holding responsible parties accountable, and establishing safeguards to prevent future harm of children’s health. Protecting Children. Exposing Harms. Seeking Justice.

CHD was founded as World Mercury Project in 2007 by Eric Gladen, it was chaired by lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from 2015 to 2023. The group has campaigned against various public health programs, such as vaccination and fluoridation of drinking water. The group has contributed to vaccine hesitancy in the United States, encouraging citizens and legislators to support anti-vaccine regulations and legislation.

In New York, CHD is leading the fight to bring back religious exemptions and freedoms, and to hold governments and corporations accountable.

The work of CHD is important and necessary, and when they win, New York State will be once again a state that recognizes religious freedom on an individual as well as collective level.

See also:

West Virginia Governor Issues Executive Order Allowing Religious Exemptions From Mandatory School Vaccinations

San Francisco BART Workers Fired Due To COVID Vaccine Mandate Each Win More Than $1 Million at Trial

The City of New York and the NYC Department of Education Never Intended on Honoring Requests For Religious Exemptions From Getting the COVID Vaccine By Municipal Workers

NYC is Forcing Unionized Public Employees Into At-Will Terms of Employment

NYC Mayor Adams Cuts Public Schools’ Budget, Calls Protestors “Clowns”

Betsy Combier

betsy@advocatz.com

Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

CHD Seeks Emergency Order to Keep Teens in School Pending Religious Exemption Lawsuit

Children’s Health Defense is seeking a temporary restraining order to allow two New York high school students to attend school until the courts rule in a lawsuit challenging the state’s repeal of religious exemptions. One of the teens, 17-year-old Raphael Goe, has Down syndrome and has been losing vision and speech skills since the school expelled him in April 2025.

by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.
January 27, 2026

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is seeking a temporary restraining order to allow two New York high school students to attend school until the courts rule in a lawsuit challenging the state’s repeal of religious exemptions.

CHD today filed the motion in federal court on behalf of Betsy Roe and Raphael Goe, both 17.

“Betsy and Raphael have suffered tremendously as a result of the state’s 2019 repeal of religious exemptions,” said CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg.

Mack Rosenberg said the two teens “exemplify” the harms that thousands of New York children and their parents have experienced since schools stopped granting exemptions to the state’s vaccine mandates.

In December 2025, CHD and a group of New York parents sued the state of New York in a bid to have the 2019 law declared unconstitutional. Plaintiffs include seven parents and nine children who appear in the lawsuit under pseudonyms.

The case seeks to ensure that all nine children, whose families want religious exemptions, are able to attend school. The temporary restraining order focuses exclusively on Roe and Goe, whose situations are especially dire.

Teen with Down syndrome losing vision, speech skills while out of school

Raphael Goe, who has Down syndrome and multiple autoimmune disorders, was expelled in April 2025 for failing to comply with the school’s vaccine mandates.

Without receiving educational and therapeutic services, he is regressing daily in his speech and sight, the motion states. “His condition has deteriorated so severely that he can now see out of only one eye and is unintelligible on the telephone.”

According to the complaint:

“His mother is forced to watch his stutter return and his vision deteriorate, knowing she could restore his care instantly — but only if she violates her faith.”

Goe is barred from attending school because he didn’t receive boosters for the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) and meningococcal ACWY vaccines. The boosters don’t prevent transmission and likely don’t confer immunity to Goe, because of the immunosuppressive therapy he receives, the motion states.

His inability to attend school is causing “immediate and irreparable” harm, according to the motion.

Christina Martinez, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said “tens of thousands” of New York children have been excluded from school due to the state’s lack of a religious exemption.

“For disabled children, the impact is even more devastating because every lost month can mean losing skills they may never get back.”

‘School saved our daughter’ 

Betsy Roe, the other plaintiff in the motion filed today, is on the brink of being expelled from school for a second time due to being unvaccinated.

Roughly six years ago, Roe had to be homeschooled due to her vaccination status. She grew depressed and anxious without the structure and socialization of regular school.

In the fall of 2025, she started her junior year in high school when school district officials accepted a medical exemption that she had obtained.

But last week, the school district suddenly changed its mind. School officials told Roe’s mother, Rebecca Roe, that they were denying Betsy’s medical exemption and would formally expel her over the next few days.

“School saved our daughter,” Rebecca told The Defender. “After six years of isolation, we finally saw her come back to life — socially, emotionally, academically.”

It would “crush her” if Betsy were forced to leave school again, her mother said. “She’s thriving right now — she has friends, structure, confidence. To take that away suddenly would be emotionally shattering.”

Betsy is in the midst of college applications and New York Regents exams. She also is scheduled to compete in school athletic events for which she has trained all season.

Sujata Gibson, the lawsuit’s lead attorney, pointed out the “absurdity” of how New York currently handles exemption requests.

“New York already allows hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated individuals — including adults and students over 18 — to be present in school buildings.”

For example, Betsy’s 18-year-old sister, who is also unvaccinated, is permitted to attend the same school, simply because she is 18.

“The families in this case are not seeking special treatment,” Gibson said. “They are seeking equal treatment under the law, and the chance for their children to learn, grow and remain healthy while the courts do their work.”

Although the original complaint explained that the plaintiffs wanted a temporary restraining order, the court couldn’t rule on it until the lawyers filed a motion specifically requesting it. “That is what we are doing now,” Gibson said.

The lawyers didn’t file for the restraining order in December because Betsy was still allowed to go to school. The school’s denial of Betsy’s medical exemption — and Raphael Goe’s loss of skills — has “made emergency court intervention necessary now,” Gibson said.

Lawsuit raises ‘fundamental’ question about religious exemptions

CHD filed the lawsuit a week after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a favorable ruling in another New York religious exemption case. The Supreme Court ruling signaled strong support for parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing.

CHD’s suit is before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. It names Dr. James V. McDonald, in his official capacity as commissioner of health for the state of New York, as the sole defendant.

The plaintiffs want the court to issue an injunction allowing religious exemptions to continue without obstruction.

Currently, school officials enforce New York’s public health law related to school vaccination requirements without offering religious exemptions.

Gibson said the case raises a “fundamental” question: “Can the state categorically exclude children from all schooling because of their parents’ religious beliefs, even when less restrictive alternatives exist and when the state tolerates identical secular risks?”

“That question matters not just to these families, but to the integrity of constitutional protections for everyone,” she said.

Related articles in The Defender

Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a senior reporter for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa.

See also:

-especially the section “Pushing back on emergency use authorizations — Masks, PCR tests and vaccines are not FDA-approved products”

EUA masks

CHD has several other ongoing mask mandate cases:

Challenging coerced PCR testing and highlighting flaws in PCR testing

The magnitude of the pandemic has been vastly overstated, thanks to a high false-positive rate from the PCR testing that has been the driving force behind the number of COVID “cases.” These inflated numbers have driven catastrophic public policies. Additionally, positive PCR tests have forced many perfectly healthy people to quarantine and miss out on major life activities, like going to school. CHD has pushed back against use of these flawed tests through litigation and education.

Defender articles

Areas of Work: CHD Works to Protect Freedom and Prevent Harm in Multiple Arenas

Preventing physical harm

The CHD legal team intends to hold the U.S. health agencies legally responsible by taking legal action against them for their illegal, unethical and dangerous push to experimentally inject children with an mRNA gene therapy that lacks adequate long-term safety and efficacy testing. Our mission is to zealously protect children by exposing the truth, holding those agencies accountable, preventing further physical harm from occurring, and seeking compensation for those already harmed.

Defender articles
Additional articles

Protecting individual liberties, including the right to informed consent

The CHD legal team shines light on how the flawed and corrupt regulatory agencies are using COVID-19 vaccine mandates as a pretext to violate fundamental human rights, specifically the right to voluntary informed consent when making medical decisions as well as the right to refuse unwanted medical interventions. Our mission is to protect these individual liberties by providing science, educating on rights under the law and filing lawsuits when necessary to keep unelected public health authorities from depriving citizens of fundamental individual rights.

CHD eBook
Defender article

Protecting freedom of thought and speech

Liberty, democracy, science and public health all depend on the free exchange of ideas. However, in collusion with governments worldwide, the mainstream media and Big Tech now routinely censor and deplatform physicians, scientists and concerned individuals who dare to share ideas, facts, news or opinions that fail to conform to the mainstream narrative.

CHD is fighting back, through lawsuits and — more immediately — through The Defender, a free, daily e-newsletter that brings you communications and truths from voices the would-be censorers don’t want you to hear.

Defender articles

New York Times — a Bastion of Censorship and Corruption — Warns ‘America Has a Free Speech Problem’
The New York Times editorial board recently opined that Americans are losing “the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions,” yet this same newspaper refused to review, or even publish an advertisement for, RFK Jr.’s runaway bestseller, “The Real Anthony Fauci.”

CHD Attorneys Argue Against Motion to Dismiss Facebook Censorship Lawsuit
Attorneys for Children’s Health Defense (CHD) on Tuesday presented oral arguments in CHD’s case against Meta Platforms Inc., also known as Facebook, its “independent fact-checkers” and Mark Zuckerberg, alleging they worked jointly with the Biden administration to censor CHD social media content.

CHD v. Facebook:

RFK Jr. v. Kos Media LLC:

Additional articles

Protecting the right to personal bodily integrity

The right to bodily integrity is inherent in every human being and is the foundation for all other rights and civil liberties. The right to bodily integrity is protected by the right of informed consent, which — except under the rarest of circumstances — prohibits medical treatment in the absence of your full knowledge and agreement.

If a government, business or school can require you to take an experimental vaccine or provide proof of a particular medical treatment that you don’t want as a condition for participating in society, the right to bodily integrity is effectively lost, and all other rights may erode, including rights to travel, assemble, worship, speak freely, privacy and more. CHD is fighting to protect the foundational right to bodily integrity through challenges to vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, and through steadfast advocacy and education in support of informed consent.

Key U.S. Supreme Court cases dealing with bodily integrity, informed consent and due process rights

Buck v. Bell, 274 US 200 (1927)

Eugenicists believed certain people were unfit to procreate. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” wrote eugenicist Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. of the Supreme Court. In the last century, an estimated 70,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized including the “feebleminded,” minorities, poor people and “promiscuous” women.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 US 11 (1905)

Reverend Jacobson fought a law in Massachusetts that allowed cities to require residents to be vaccinated against smallpox. Reverend Jacobson refused to comply with the requirement and was fined five dollars. The Supreme Court upheld the Cambridge, MA mandate with several qualifications.

Korematsu v. United States, 319 US 432 (1943)

During World War II, the U.S. government required Japanese-Americans to move into relocation camps after President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. U.S. citizen Korematsu stayed at his residence rather than obey the order to relocate. Korematsu was arrested and convicted of violating the order. In what is now widely considered a racist, shameful decision, the Supreme Court upheld the President’s order to forcibly relocate Japanese Americans.

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

The First, Third, Fourth and Ninth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution create the right to privacy in marital relations against state restrictions on contraception. Various guarantees within the Bill of Rights create “penumbras,” or zones, that establish a right to privacy.

Nuremberg Code

A landmark document, drafted by American lawyers and doctors, resulting from the “Nazi Doctors Trial” after World War II has become the cornerstone of international medical ethics.

CHD Roundup of mandate lawsuits

Protecting parental rights

Some writers display an ill-disguised hostility towards parents who elect not to vaccinate their children, characterizing them as “idiots,” “cruel” and “terrible” parents.

Around the world, vaccine mandates are snowballing. Growing numbers of government officials and public health officials are imposing oppressive mandates that trample on religious, parental and human rights.

Protecting the right of association

  • Individual Rights and Freedoms Under Siege in Era of COVID
    “The COVID-19 pandemic has proven an opportunity of convenience for totalitarian elements who have put individual rights and freedoms globally under siege,” said CHD chairman Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his letter to 100,000 lawyers.

Protecting freedom of religion

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” This Amendment protects religious liberty in two important ways: prohibiting all governments in the U.S. from establishing a religion or favoring one religion over another and protecting the rights of each of us to practice our own religion. Additionally, a federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (“RFRA”), provides very broad protection for religious liberty. Specifically, RFRA states, “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless it demonstrates that the application of the burden on the individual: “(1) is in furtherance of a compelling government interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(b).

  • South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom (02/05/2021)
  • Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo
    “Why have some mistaken this Court’s modest decision in Jacobson for a towering authority that overshadows the Constitution during a pandemic? In the end, I can only surmise that much of the answer lies in a particular judicial impulse to stay out of the way in times of crisis. But if that impulse may be understandable or even admirable in other circumstances, we may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack. Things never go well when we do.” (GORSUCH, J., concurring)
  • D.C. Minor Consent lawsuit

Protecting the right to travel

Protecting against passports

Medical digital identification passes, AKA “Vaccine Passports” are the gateway to a social credit system and a biomedical security state. While proponents of vaccine passports claim they will enhance public safety and convenience, what they really do is allow governmental and corporate actors to amass and store personal data about every human being and to use this data for surveillance and control.

Defender Articles 
Other articles 

Demanding transparency of corporate and government actors

The CHD legal team is working to expose the truth regarding regulatory capture — an economic theory whereby regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have become infiltrated by the industries that they are charged with regulating. In other words, the agencies authorized and instructed to act in the best interests of the public are instead working for the benefit of particular industries such as Big Pharma. As a result, unhealthy relationships between the private sector and government agencies take root, rife with conflicts of interest, bias and corruption. By shedding light on the truth of what happens behind closed doors, transparency and accountability are critical to guarding against the abusive practices where profit over people is the business plan.

Defender articles

Holding corporate and government actors accountable

Governmental agencies like the CDC, the FDA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) are supposed to protect the public by regulating corporate actors like pharmaceutical companies. But ironically, often the agencies do just the opposite: they protect the profits of companies through shady, shoddy approvals, and further enhance those profits by regulating the public. CHD is working to hold these actors accountable, by uncovering, publicizing and challenging authorizations and approvals and other actions that enrich corporate actors at the expense of public health.

Defender articles

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