Jacobson v. Massachusetts [SCOTUSbrief]

Описание: When a smallpox outbreak swept through the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1903, Rev. Henning Jacobson refused to comply with Massachusetts’ compulsory vaccination law. The victim of a botched vaccination in his childhood, Jacobson was fined $5 under the law and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, claiming that this law was a violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Was Massachusetts’ compulsory vaccination law a violation of individual liberty? Prof. Josh Blackman of the South Texas College of Law Houston explores the limitations of state police powers and public health in Jacobson v. Massachusetts.

#SCOTUS #14thamendment #vaccination #SupremeCourt #FourteenthAmendment #vaccine #vaccinate #Massachusetts #smallpox #law #liberty #individualliberty

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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues. All expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.

Learn more about Josh Blackman:
https://www.stcl.edu/about-us/faculty...

Follow Josh Blackman on Twitter: @JoshMBlackman
  / joshmblackman  

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Related Links & Differing Views:

The First Amendment Encyclopedia: “Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)”
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/...

American Journal of Public Health: “Jacobson v. Massachusetts at 100: Police Power and Civil Liberties in Tension”
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi...

Harvard Law Review: “Towards a Twenty-First-Century Jacobson v. Massachusetts”
https://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-c...

“The Long Shadow of Jacobson v. Massachusetts: Epidemics, Fundamental Rights, and the Courts”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...

Reason: “Jacobson v. Massachusetts did not uphold the state’s power to mandate vaccinations.”
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/11/24/....