NYC school staffers ask SCOTUS to block city's vaccine mandate

blob:https://abc7ny.com/d408560c-fdaa-4625-99e1-17412d810dd1 EDUCATION NYC school staffers ask SCOTUS to block city's vaccine mandate Thursday, September 30, 2021 9:56PM EMBED <>MORE VIDEOS Jim Dolan has the latest on COVID vaccine mandates for school staff in New York City and healthcare workers in New York. NEW YORK (WABC) -- A group of New York City public school teachers asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to block the city's vaccine mandate for school employees, claiming it violates their due process and equal protection rights. "If permitted to take effect, the August 23 Order will force thousands of unvaccinated public-school employees to lose their jobs-while other municipal employees, including those who have significant contact with children, are allowed to opt-out of the vaccine mandate through weekly COVID-19 testing," the petition said. Rachel Maniscalco, Evelyn Arancio, Diana Salomon, and Corinne Lynch said they have a fundamental right to their respected profession as public school teachers. "While a temporary interruption of work is not actionable, the mandate here would have a permanent effect: it is open-ended, where if a teacher never gets vaccinated, he or she will never be able to return to work," the petition said. A federal appeals court earlier this week dissolved a temporary injunction and allowed the mandate to stand. The city has given school employees until 5 p.m. Friday to comply before enforcement begins Monday. The unvaccinated teachers said they should be given an option to regularly test rather than forced to get the shot and they accused the city of failing to explain why that alternative was not made available. "As the number of unvaccinated is small compared to that of the vaccinated, there is no basis to mandate vaccines in lieu of weekly testing," the petition said. ALSO READ | United Airlines fires 593 people for not complying with COVID vaccine mandate