Appeals Panel Backs Vaccine Requirement for Virtual Student

A West Virginia law requiring childhood vaccination is likely constitutional and doesn’t require a religious exemption for a virtual student, a divided federal appeals court ruled.

Writing for the majority in a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III said West Virginia’s vaccine law “is a legitimate exercise of the state’s power to protect the health and wellbeing of school children,” and that “striking the law down would undermine not just our system of dual sovereignty, but also a long line of Supreme Court precedent.”

Wednesday’s decision comes in a ...