Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Notable

Reestablish religious exemption waivers for child welfare agencies

Partially done

494 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“HHS should reestablish waivers for state and child welfare agencies for religious exemptions, especially for faith-based adoption and foster care agencies. It should also rescind subjective case-by-case evaluations for religious and faith-based organizations that request religious exemptions.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    OCR's Rescission of Office for Civil Rights Documents Under Executive Order 14192, Deregulation Item 2, disavows the three November 2021 letters (OCR to Michigan and Texas, ACF to South Carolina) that had withdrawn the March 2020 RFRA waivers letting faith-based foster-care and adoption agencies operate according to their beliefs. HHS says it no longer holds the 2021 letters' reading of RFRA and that covered entities should not rely on it. Repudiating the withdrawals is not the same as re-granting the waivers, and no new waiver letter has been published. The notice was re-read in full on 2026-09-03 in the version HHS posts on its own conscience pages, which enumerates exactly four Deregulation Items; Item 2 is this one, and the notice states in terms that it "creates no legal obligations and no legal rights". That is why this strengthens the `partial` rather than lifting it — a disavowal of a withdrawal, expressly disclaiming legal effect, is not the reestablished waiver the Quote asks for. Recorded as a judgment call: a reviewer who reads the 2021 letters as the only thing standing between the 2020 waivers and effect could level `done`. The second limb - rescinding subjective case-by-case evaluation of religious-exemption requests - is proposed but not final: OMB's 2026-05-29 grants rule would tell agencies and pass-through entities not to structure procedures requiring "discretionary case-by-case approval" of conscience or religious accommodation requests.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Full text read at govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-26/html/2026-01434.htm, “Deregulation Item 2: 3 Letters Concerning 45 CFR 75.300, RFRA, and Foster Care”.
  • Shared instrument, three ways. HHS also posts the notice at hhs.gov/conscience/your-protections-against-discrimination-based-on-conscience-and-religion/hhs-disavowal-repudiation-documents/index.html, dated 2026-01-21 and signed by Paula M. Stannard, Director, OCR. Its four Deregulation Items carry three different Recommendations: Item 1 (the July 2021 University of Vermont Medical Center letter) is #1383, Item 4 (the August 2021 California Weldon withdrawal letter) is #1384, and Item 2 is this item. Each note states what the one document does to its own Quote, so that items resting on one document do not drift apart.
  • The related ACF rulemaking, Designated Placement Requirements Under Titles IV-E and IV-B for LGBTQI+ Children; Rescission (proposed 2026-03-06, final 2026-07-14), removes a placement requirement rather than granting religious exemptions, so it is context rather than Evidence for this ask.
  • Shared instrument with #1325, and not merged with it (2026-09-01). Both items rest on FR 2026-01434, Deregulation Item 2. Tested against the rule that one ask stated twice is one Recommendation, and not merged: #1325 asks ACF and OCR to survey their programs and consider whether additional waivers are needed, while this Quote asks that the waivers be reestablished and case-by-case evaluation rescinded. Shared Evidence, different acts. On the Status, the notice reaches this ask further than it reaches #1325’s and the two Statuses differ to say so: repudiating the 2021 withdrawals is a piece of reestablishing the waivers, which keeps this item at partial, whereas a repudiation is neither a program survey nor an additional waiver, which moved #1325 to attempted on the same date. This item’s partial also carries a second leg #1325 has no counterpart to — the 2026-05-29 OMB grants rule on case-by-case approval, the ask’s second limb.
  • HHS also plans RIN 0991-AC44, Equal Participation of Faith-Based Organizations in HHS’s Programs and Activities (NPRM listed for 11/2026), which is recorded as Evidence on #1392.
Action
reinstate
Object
religious exemption waivers for state and child welfare agencies
ID
1393