(Bloomberg) -- New York City public school employees are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the city's Covid-19 vaccine mandate, which will be enforced Oct. 1.
“Absent intervention from this Court, in less than two days, thousands of public-school employees will be forced out of work,” the workers said in their emergency request to the justices Thursday.
They note that while other municipal employees are allowed to opt-out of the vaccine requirement by agreeing to weekly Covid testing, that option is not available to public-school staff. There are, however, medical and religious exemptions.
Read More: NYC School Vaccine Mandate Ban Lifted in Surprise Court Ruling
The request comes by way of the Supreme Court's emergency docket -- dubbed the shadow docket -- which has garnered criticism recently. The justices have used the emergency docket as a vehicle for rulings undoing the federal eviction moratorium, reinstating the Trump-era “remain in Mexico” policy, and allowing Texas's strict abortion law to go into effect.
In a speech Thursday, Justice Samuel Alito rejected criticisms of the shadow docket while speaking to students at Notre Dame.
New York City may begin to bar thousands of unvaccinated school personnel from their jobs after a three-judge federal appellate court panel on Monday lifted a temporary injunction preventing such a move.
The mandate will affect approximately 148,000 teachers and school staff.
The case is Maniscalco v. New York City Dept. of Education, No. 21A50.
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