People protest vaccine mandates in New York City in September 2021. (Pamela Drew/Flickr)
TOPEKA – As a result of the Kansas Attorney General vigorously defending state law, the Kansas Supreme Court Friday upheld a 2021 Kansas law that allows workers to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds.
“During the COVID crisis, all too many private companies imposed draconian vaccine requirements on their employees,” Kobach said. “The Kansas Legislature responded and provided Kansans a broad religious exemption.” Kobach said he was determined to preserve this law against challenges in court after he was elected attorney general. “This decision marks a victory for our office and a great victory for all Kansans,” he said.
The 2021 law, passed during the only special session in Kansas history ever called by the legislature itself, enables employees seeking a religious exemption to submit a written waiver request attesting that receiving the COVID-19 vaccine would violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. Employers then must grant the exemption without inquiring into the sincerity of the religious belief. The special session was called to circumvent Governor Laura Kelly’s plodding “phased reopening” of the state which many Kansans and elected leaders said was too slow and continued to stymie the state’s economy and degrade public school education by continuing school shutdowns.
Powerback Rehabilitation, a healthcare company, sought judicial review of a Kansas Department of Labor order arguing that state law conflicted with a federal law that required the company to vaccinate its employees.
Writing for the majority of the Kansas Supreme Court, Justice Caleb Stegall wrote, “when a federal law permits, but does not require, action by a private party, there is generally room for the state to prohibit that action—in this case, inquiring into religious sincerity” and “simply put, this case asks us to resolve the question – which law must Powerback follow? We hold the two regimes are not in conflict, thus Powerback must comply with both.”
Read the Kansas Supreme Court decision here.
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
