Whether a State may avoid judicial review of a statute categorically prohibiting religious accommodations by rescinding an emergency rule while continuing to enforce the statute in other respects

As Justice Gorsuch noted nearly four years ago, This case presents an important constitutional question, a serious error, and an irreparable injury. Where many other States have adopted religious exemptions, Maine has charted a different course. There, healthcare workers who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months are now being fired and their practices shuttered. All for adhering to their constitutionally protected religious beliefs. Their plight is wo rthy of our attention. Does 1 -3 v. Mills , 142 S. Ct. 17, 22 (2021) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting ). Since its inception, this case has come to this Court three times and in the court of appeals four times. In the third appeal , the First Circuit permitted Petitioners to probe their claims in discovery. Upon returning to the district court, the State immediately claimed that its vaccine mandate was no longer necessary, rescinded it (after maintaining it for three years), and moved to dismiss Petitioners’ claims to evade scrutiny of its discriminatory mandate . Petitioners’ constitutional claims were worthy of this Court’s attention four years ago and still are today . Though the pandemic has ended, the ruinous constitutional injury thrust upon Petitioners has not. The questions presented for review are: (1) Whether a State may avoid judicial review of an authorizing statute that categorically prohibits ii religious accommodations to compulsory to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—by rescinding an emergency rule applying the statute to a specific disease, while continuing to enforce the statute in all other respects . (2) Whether a State’s decision to maintain an unconstitutional ly discriminatory system of compulsory vaccination through three years of litigation and only rescinds it s vaccination mandate immediately after an appellate court requires it to submit to merits discovery concerning the constitutionality of that system engages in a litigationdriven sham to escape review of its unconstitutional policies .