Krystle Perry, Individually and on Behalf of Their Minor Child, K. P., et vir v. Stacy Marteney, as the Virtual Learning Coordinator of the Upshur County Virtual School, et al.

Krystle and Anthony Perry enrolled their daughter K.P. in West Virginia’s virtual public school. When officials learned that K.P. was not fully vaccinated, they disenrolled her. The Perrys sought an accommodation to the state’s compulsory-vaccination law based on their sincerely held religious beliefs. Officials denied that request—even though K.P. schools only at home and despite the fact that the law treats homeschooled students and students attending a learning pod or a microschool more favorably by granting them a blanket vaccine exemption. The Fourth Circuit rejected the Perrys’ free-exercise claim, applying rational-basis review. It reasoned that the law does not favor secular conduct over religious conduct because the decision to send K.P. to virtual school was not religiously motivated—though her parents’ beliefs on vaccination are. It also held that Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. 522 (2025), which addressed an “instrument of ideological indoctrination,” does not apply to a “public health measure.” App.39a. The questions presented are:

1. Whether a law that exempts people based on secular criteria but not religious reasons is subject to strict scrutiny and violates the First Amendment even when the religious burden is implicated by an act—like attending school or working—that is not itself religiously motivated.

2. Whether a law is subject to strict scrutiny under Mahmoud when it imposes a non-curricular requirement that substantially burdens parents’ rights to guide the religious development of their child.