The U.S. Supreme Court issued an "unsigned emergency order" Thursday that exempts a Christian college from the regulation that provides contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act, according to Slate.com.

The order, delivered just before Friday, concerns Wheaton College vs. Burwell. Wheaton, an evangelical Protestant liberal arts college in Illinois, filed a lawsuit objecting to signing form 700, which would have exempted the religious entity from meeting the contraception mandate. Once the form is signed, a third party -- "the company's insurers or third-party administrators," Slate reported -- is assigned to cover the birth control mandate instead of the employer. Wheaton and other religious nonprofits argued that signing the form triggers third parties to provide contraception, which is the same as the religious nonprofit providing the contraception itself. Dozens of other nonprofits have sued over the form.

In the temporary order, the justices said that "Wheaton College does not have to fill out the contested form while its case is on appeal but can instead write to the Department of Health and Human Services declaring that it is an religious nonprofit organization and makings its objection to emergency contraception," The Associated Press reported, adding that the college provides coverage for other birth control. The Court said it "was not ultimately deciding the issue" Thursday and would likely later "take up the nonprofits' cases."

The order drew a heated response in a 16-page dissent from the three female justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, who also dissented in the 5-4 Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores decision, issued Monday.

"I disagree strongly with what the court has done," Sotomayor wrote. "Those who are bound by our decisions believe they can take us at our word. Not so today. After expressly relying on the availability of the religious-nonprofit accommodation to hold that the contraceptive coverage requirement violates (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act) as applied to closely held for-profit corporation, the Court now, as the dissent in Hobby Lobby fears it might, retreats from that position."

The order follows on "the Supreme Court's decision on Monday giving Hobby Lobby Inc. and other businesses with religious objections the ability to opt out of paying for birth control for women coverage by their employee health plans," the AP reported.

Sotomayor added, "Today's injunction thus risks depriving hundreds of Wheaton's employees and students of their legal entitlement to contraceptive coverage. In addition, because Wheaton is materially indistinguishable from other nonprofits that object to the Government's accommodation, the issuance of an injunction in this case will presumably entitle hundreds or thousands of other objectors to the same remedy."