''Zucht v. King'', 260 U.S. 174 (1922), was a

landmark decision Landmark court decisions, in present-day common law legal systems, establish precedents that determine a significant new legal principle or concept, or otherwise substantially affect the interpretation of existing law. "Leading case" is commonly u ...

by the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in which the Court held, 9–0, that public schools could constitutionally exclude unvaccinated students from attending, even if there was not an ongoing outbreak. In the case, the school district of

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

enacted an ordinance that prohibited any child from attending a school within the district unless they had been vaccinated against

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

. One parent of a student who had been excluded, Rosalyn Zucht, sued on the basis that there was not a public health emergency. Justice

Louis Brandeis Louis Dembitz Brandeis (; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. Starting in 1890, he helped develop the "right to privacy" concept ...

wrote for the unanimous court that requiring students to be vaccinated was a justified use of " police power" to maintain public health and safety. Brandeis invoked a previous decision, ''

Jacobson v. Massachusetts ''Jacobson v. Massachusetts'', 197 U.S. 11 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination laws. The Court's decision articulated the view that individual liberty i ...

'' (1905), in which the Court upheld the authority of the states to enforce

compulsory vaccination A vaccination policy is a health policy adopted in order to prevent the spread of infectious disease. These policies are generally put into place by State or local governments, but may also be set by private facilities, such as workplaces or sc ...

laws.

Opinion

The city of San Antonio, Texas, enacted an ordinance prohibiting any child from attending a public school or other places of education without having first presented a certificate of vaccination for

. Consequently, Rosalyn Zucht was excluded from both public and private schools due to her refusal to receive a vaccination. Zucht sued, asserting that there was no emergency requiring vaccination and that she was deprived of liberty without due process of law by effectively making vaccination compulsory. The Texas state courts denied her claims, and she appealed to the United States Supreme Court. In a brief opinion, the Court noted that in the previous case of ''

'', the Court "had settled that it is within the police power of a state to provide for compulsory vaccination". The Court found no reason to question the fairness with which the city ordinance was applied in this case, and found that the ordinance reflected the broad discretion needed by authorities to protect the public health. The Court also noted that although the plaintiff asserted an equal protection violation, she had not articulated any impermissible discrimination that would invoke that doctrine, leaving nothing for the Court to examine with respect to such a claim.

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* * {{US14thAmendment, dueprocess Health law in the United States United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Taft Court Vaccine controversies 1922 in United States case law Vaccination law

Opinion

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