As many of you know, earlier this year we filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a California high school student and his parents, after the student was expelled from school for asserting a religious exemption to mandatory school vaccinations. California eliminated personal belief exemptions in 2015.

The student was not only thrown out of school by the Ventura Unified School District (VUSD), but he was given a failing grade in all of his classes, despite the fact that he was an honor roll student. And worse still, school officials referred the case to the District Attorney, who charged the parents with truancy. This, despite the fact that the school district itself is responsible for the child not attending school, not the parents!

Fortunately, the criminal truancy charges were recently dropped, after we challenged them on First Amendment grounds. But still, the district court denied our motions for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, which would have allowed the student to return to school while the case played out in court. The Ninth Circuit recently affirmed this dismissal, and the student has missed the entire first month of the school year.

That takes us to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, where today we have filed an emergency petition seeking reversal of the district court’s decision, and a ruling that what the VUSD did violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion. This case is tremendously important, because it has the potential to restore religious exemptions to vaccinations for schoolchildren not only in California, but in every state in the nation. Currently, approximately 20 percent of the nation’s population does not have the ability to opt out of school vaccine mandates on religious grounds.

That’s why today, we are asking for your prayers. If you’re able to do so, we’d also greatly appreciate a donation to our Sixth Annual Vaccine Awareness Marathon Fundraiser. Donations to the fundraiser help to fuel our legal efforts across the country, including this lawsuit in California. We have exhausted many hours of legal work and thousands of dollars in resources to fund this litigation. We need to recoup some of those expenses so that we can provide free legal assistance to more families in need. We thank you in advance for your generosity!

If you’d rather give by mail, you can send donations to:

We The Patriots USA Inc.

5210 Cleveland Boulevard

Bldg. 140, Ste. 222

Caldwell, ID 83607