by Sharon Rondeau
(Sep. 8, 2026) — Following a hearing last Thursday, on Tuesday a federal judge denied two plaintiffs’ motions seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO) and preliminary injunction against the Maine Department of Education and a school-district superintendent for barring an eighth-grader from attending school due to his religious objection to required vaccines.
Representing itself and plaintiff James Childs, the father of the child currently prohibited from attending school, We the Patriots USA wrote in its brief:
8. Maine has long required superintendents of schools to refuse to enroll a child in school without a certificate of immunization for certain diseases or other evidence of immunization or immunity. See 20 A.M.R.S.A. § 6355.
9. Prior to September 1, 2021, Maine recognized and respected religious and philosophical exemptions to school vaccinations. See Fox v. Makin, 2023 WL
5279517, at *2 (D.Me. 2023) (discussing statutory history).
10. In 2019, Maine repealed its religious and philosophical exemptions, effective September 1, 2021. Id.
11. As matters currently stand, Maine recognizes three exemptions to its school vaccination requirement:
a. A 90-day grace period for a child to be immunized upon the written assurance of a parent. 20 A.M.R.S.A. § 6355(1).
b. A medical exemption based on a written statement from a statutorily specified medical provider that a vaccination is medically inadvisable. 20 A.M.R.S.A. § 6355(2).
c. Religious or philosophical exemptions for students covered by individualized education plans (IEP) who invoked a religious or philosophical objection prior to September 1, 2021 as long as they undergo medical counseling. 20 A.M.R.S.A. § 6355(4).
Co-founded by Attorney Brian Festa, We the Patriots USA was represented by Stephen C. Whiting of The Whiting Law Firm, Portland, ME; and Atty. Cameron Atkinson of Atkinson Law, LLC, Harwinton, CT.
The organization is pursuing similar litigation in West Virginia, Connecticut, New York and California, which, like Maine, do not permit exemptions to vaccination for on religious grounds.
The plaintiffs claimed that Maine statute 20 A.M.R.S.A. § 6355, which took effect in 2021, and the Department of Education’s denial of a religious exemption to the co-plaintiff’s son, violate the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, petitioning the court for “a permanent injunction enjoining the Defendants, their agents, officers, and any other person subject to their control or direction from enforcing 20 A.M.R.S.A. § 6355 against James Childs, his son, and similarly situated members of We The Patriots USA, Inc. who religiously object to receiving Maine’s required school vaccinations” as well as attorneys’ fees and costs.
In her opinion issued Tuesday, federal judge Stacey Diane Neumann disagreed, contending that § 6355 “does not facially target religion or religious conduct for ‘especially harsh treatment.’”
“The legislative history confirms the statute’s neutrality,” Neumann wrote. “Lawmakers enacted § 6355 in response to Maine’s declining vaccination rates among elementary and secondary schoolchildren and resulting public health concerns…Plaintiffs neither allege, nor does the legislative record reflect, any anti-religious sentiment. To be sure, some legislators voiced strong support for eliminating non-medical exemptions altogether…Moreover, when the Maine Legislature repealed the religious and philosophical
beliefs exemption in 2019, it repealed all personal belief exemptions, ‘and thus did not single out religion alone.’”
Neumann further argued that “Maine has a legitimate interest in protecting the health and safety of its schoolchildren and the public at large, and requiring vaccination as a condition of school enrollment is rationally related to that interest: it maximizes the number of students protected against vaccine-preventable disease and correspondingly minimizes the risk of outbreak within Maine’s schools.”
In a newsletter announcing the ruling Tuesday, WTPUSA wrote, in part:
The good news is that, in denying the preliminary injunction request along with the temporary restraining order, the court provided us with a path to appeal (a denial of a temporary restraining order, on its own, generally cannot be appealed).
And we are already working on an immediate appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. If denied there, we will be swiftly filing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Another positive to come out of this decision is that, although the defendants attacked the sincerity of Mr. Childs’s religious beliefs, the court found his beliefs to be sincere based on the record presented. And Judge Neumann also acknowledged the harm being suffered by the child as a result of his expulsion from school:
“…the harm to G.C. [the student] is readily apparent. Missing school is not trivial. Each day he is absent from eighth grade results in lost educational opportunity, a missed conversation with a classmate, and a disruption to his childhood.”