by Sharon Rondeau
(Sep. 30, 2026) — The non-profit legal entity We the Patriots USA announced Wednesday it filed an emergency appeal with the First Circuit Court of Appeals concerning the case of a Maine father/plaintiff threatened with a charge of truancy.
The accusation arose from the father’s eighth-grade son having been absent from school since the beginning of the academic year because the Maine Department of Education barred him from attending if he remained unvaccinated for Tdap and meningococcus.
Plaintiff James Childs claims a religious objection to having his son inoculated as state law requires. While the statute allows for certain exemptions, including medical, the religious exemption was repealed in 2019 and took effect September 1, 2021.
On September 8, U.S. District Judge for the District of Maine Stacey Diane Neumann denied the plaintiffs’ petition 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.”
Neumann reasoned 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.”
Maine is one of five states which does not allow for a religious exemption to school-mandated vaccines; the others are West Virginia, New York, California and Connecticut.
In its newsletter Wednesday, We the Patriots USA wrote:
Last week, we reported that the Maine school district at the center of our Maine school vaccine exemption lawsuit had threatened our plaintiff-parent, James Child, with truancy charges, even though the school is responsible for the child’s failure to receive an education. We have now officially filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit seeking emergency relief so that the child may attend school. And beyond that, we’re asking that religious liberty be restored for all members of We The Patriots USA living in Maine, since our organization is also a plaintiff.
If we aren’t successful at the First Circuit, we will be swiftly filing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we’ll be asking the court to declare Maine’s refusal to honor religious exemptions to vaccine mandates unconstitutional. Such a victory would win back the right for every child in America to attend school, regardless of their families’ religious beliefs about vaccination.
On August 13, WTPUSA co-founder Brian Festa sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche requesting the Justice Department intervene in the organization’s cases challenging the absence of religious exemptions in the aforementioned states. On September 21, Acting Chief of the Civil Rights Division John Mertens responded, stating, in part, “Unfortunately, the Section is not able to pursue every request to participate in private lawsuits that we receive, and we have determined that we are not in a position to participate in this case at this time. We have, however, referred your letter to the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education for their review. Accordingly, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice will take no further action in response to your request, but this should not be taken as a determination on the merits of your claims.”
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