A devout Catholic mom on Staten Island is suing the city, saying her daughter was improperly barred from attending class when school officials wouldn’t recognize her religious exemption from receiving medical vaccinations.
In her federal civil-rights suit, filed in Brooklyn, Dina Check, of West Brighton, accuses the city Education Department of prohibiting her 5-year-old from attending PS 35 on Tuesday — even though she filed paperwork for an exemption stating her family’s belief that forced immunization violates important tenets of their faith.
“To inject invasive and unnatural substances into this divine creation is showing a lack of faith in God and His way,” Check says in the lawsuit.
Check says she made repeated complaints to city school officials about the issue — but got nowhere, the suit says.
In the lawsuit, Check also claims that her family physician had given a formal opinion that because the child suffers from immune deficiencies and gastrointestinal problems, immunization posed a medical risk for the girl.
The Department of Education yesterday referred calls to the city Law Department, which said it is reviewing the lawsuit.