The San Diego Unified School District was forced to temporarily halt the implementation of its vaccine mandate Sunday after a U.S. District Court ruled in favor of an emergency injunction.
Students aged 16 and older at San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) needed to be inoculated by Monday, Nov. 29 to comply with the district’s vaccine mandate, which required students to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 20, according to Fox 5. Attorneys representing a family that filed a religious rights lawsuit against the district’s mandate were granted an emergency injunction.
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Attorneys with the Thomas More Society filed a religious rights lawsuit against SDUSD on Oct. 22 on behalf of a family whose child is a student athlete at Scripps Ranch High School. The case claims “religious discrimination as a result of the school district’s requirement that all students must be vaccinated against COVID-19,” according to a press release.
“The appeal was filed after the United States District Court for the Southern District of California denied the request by the student’s family for a Temporary Restraining Order and vacated a hearing that had been set for November 19, 2021,” the press release reads in part.
Legal counsel argues that religious student athletes, including their client, must decide whether to violate their faith or lose opportunities to become collegiate athletes on scholarship. (RELATED: Republicans Introduce Legislation To Prevent Vaccine Mandates In School)
“Our clients are opposed to the COVID-19 vaccines because they were all either made or tested using aborted fetal cells. Our clients are firmly pro-life and refuse to benefit from vaccines that were made in this way, which they view as immoral — as do many other people of faith,” legal counsel said.
According to Nebraska Medicine, there are not aborted fetal cells in the vaccine, though fetal cell lines obtained by aborted fetal tissues decades ago were used in the development of the vaccine.
According to legal counsel at both Thomas More and partners at LiMandri & Joanna LLP, SDUSD is not offering religious exemptions for the mandate, though the district allows “unvaccinated students with a medical exemption to attend school in person and participate in school athletics.”
The San Diego Unified School District did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.