A 17-year-old identified in court documents as Sarah Doe has been expelled from her New York high school and is now seeking emergency federal intervention, after three additional physicians concluded that the remaining vaccines required for school attendance would place her already compromised health at serious risk. The new opinions bring the total number of doctors who have reached that same conclusion to ten over the past two years, all of them arguing that Sarah qualifies for a medical exemption. Despite that accumulation of medical opinion, the school district has continued to deny her exemption requests.
Ten Doctors, Two Years, One Outcome
According to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Sarah and her mother Jane Doe filed an emergency motion asking for a temporary restraining order that would allow Sarah, a high school senior, to attend school while the district reviews her latest medical exemption request. Children’s Health Defense is funding her legal case.
The motion followed a Sept. 23 ruling by U.S. District Judge Gary Brown, who declined to extend Sarah’s previous medical exemption from the 2024-2025 school year into the current school year. The district expelled Sarah the following day, Sept. 24. A few days later, the district readmitted her temporarily, pending the result of a blood test ordered by her doctor to determine whether she already has hepatitis B titers from the first two doses she received.
The two vaccines at issue are a third hepatitis B shot and the meningococcal vaccine. New York State requires hepatitis B vaccination for all students from child care through grade 12, along with DTaP, poliovirus, MMR, and varicella, according to the New York City Department of Education’s immunization guidance. Meningococcal vaccination requirements vary significantly across states. According to the Immunization Action Coalition, many states do not require this vaccine for secondary school attendance at all.
The District Denied the Most Recent Exemption Over Missed Phone Calls
Before Sarah’s temporary readmission, she had a medical exemption request pending from Dr. Michael Miller, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who also concluded she should not be vaccinated. On Sept. 28, the district denied Miller’s request. The stated reason, according to court documents, was that the district’s reviewing physician made three unsuccessful attempts to reach Miller by telephone.
The district had not even required proof of meningococcal vaccination until Sept. 30, two days after it denied Miller’s exemption request for that same vaccine.
What the Emergency Motion Asks For
The emergency motion asks the federal court to issue a temporary restraining order allowing Sarah to remain enrolled and attending school while the district formally reviews a new medical exemption request covering both the third hepatitis B dose and the meningococcal vaccine. The three new physician opinions supporting this request add to seven that preceded them, all reaching the same clinical conclusion: vaccination would put Sarah at increased risk given her existing health condition.
Court filings include a declaration from Jane Doe, Sarah’s mother, describing the sequence of events and the impact of repeated expulsions on her daughter’s education. Sarah is a senior, meaning each absence from school carries heightened consequences for her graduation and future.
New York’s Medical Exemption Standard
New York State allows medical exemptions from school immunization requirements. All 50 states and Washington D.C. permit such exemptions for children who cannot receive vaccines for medical reasons, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. New York does not allow non-medical exemptions based on religious or personal beliefs, having eliminated that option in prior years. That means medical exemption is the only legal pathway available to Sarah if she cannot be vaccinated.
The standard for granting a medical exemption requires a licensed physician to certify that immunization would be detrimental to the student’s health. Ten physicians have now done exactly that in Sarah’s case. The school district has, in each instance, rejected those certifications.
A Pattern Across Two School Years
This is not the first time Sarah has faced expulsion over this issue. Reporting from Children’s Health Defense documents that a New York judge previously ruled Sarah could attend school under a medical exemption, only for that exemption to lapse at the end of the school year and the legal fight to restart. The current emergency motion represents at least the second cycle of expulsion, temporary readmission, and renewed federal court proceedings.
The case raises a question that the court has not yet resolved: at what point does an accumulation of physician opinion carry dispositive weight in a school district’s review process? The district has declined exemptions supported by specialists including a pediatric infectious disease physician, without the reviewing physician ever speaking directly to the certifying doctor.
Children’s Health Defense and the Federal Forum
Children’s Health Defense, the advocacy organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is financing Sarah’s litigation. The organization has been involved in multiple legal challenges to state vaccine mandates and school immunization policies across the country. Filing in federal court, rather than state court, signals that Sarah’s attorneys are pressing federal constitutional or statutory claims, though the specific legal theories in the emergency motion are detailed in court filings rather than summarized here.
The Eastern District of New York is now the venue where this dispute will be decided, at least in the short term. Judge Brown’s Sept. 23 order declining to extend the prior exemption was the immediate trigger for the current round of litigation.
What Comes Next
The district is conducting a formal review of the new exemption request. Sarah’s continued ability to attend school during that review depends on whether Judge Brown, or another federal judge, grants the requested temporary restraining order. If the restraining order is denied, Sarah faces a third expulsion before the district has finished reviewing the request she filed.
The meningococcal vaccine requirement the district is enforcing did not apply to any student until Sept. 30 of the current school year. The exemption request for that vaccine was denied two days before the requirement even took effect, on the basis that phone calls to the certifying physician went unanswered.
Whether a federal court will treat ten physician opinions, a prior judicial ruling in Sarah’s favor, and a procedural denial based on missed phone calls as sufficient grounds for emergency relief remains an open question. The district has not publicly explained why its reviewing physician has not accepted written communication from the certifying doctors in lieu of telephone contact.
This article draws on reporting from Activist Post and Children’s Health Defense, as well as immunization requirement information from the NYC Department of Education and state exemption policy data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Why is Sarah Doe being expelled from school in New York?
Sarah Doe, a 17-year-old New York high school senior, has been expelled because the school district has denied all medical exemption requests from the final two vaccines required for attendance, a third hepatitis B shot and the meningococcal vaccine, despite ten physicians arguing that vaccination would harm her.
How many doctors have said Sarah Doe should not be vaccinated?
Ten doctors have submitted medical opinions over the past two years concluding that Sarah qualifies for a medical exemption and that forcing her to receive the remaining required vaccines would put her health at increased risk.
Why was Sarah Doe’s most recent vaccine exemption denied?
The school district denied the most recent exemption request from Dr. Michael Miller, a pediatric infectious disease specialist, citing three unsuccessful phone calls by its reviewing physician, without any apparent attempt to reach him in writing.
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