BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here
Edit Story

Why College Vaccine Mandates Are Controversial But Likely To Be Widely Adopted

The Harvard Crimson story this week reads like a piece in the humor publication The Onion: “Harvard Experiments With In-Person Instruction.” The student-run Crimson seemed not to register that Harvard professors have been teaching in person for 385 years.

After a year of online learning, college students and instructors are eager to get back to life B.C. (Before Covid). But schools are making a confusing and controversial patchwork of plans.

Harvard has yet to say it will require students to get vaccinated. In March, faculty of arts and sciences dean Claudine Gay said that she expects “a full return to campus” in the fall, though specifics won’t be announced until May. Meantime, this spring students sat in on a trial run of 14 classes, covered by the Crimson. Some were face-to-face with masks and distancing. Others were hybrid.

More than 100 colleges have announced vaccine mandates. On April 22, California’s two huge university systems, the University of California and California State, both said that they intend to require students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated. But they also said the requirement is contingent on the federal government giving full approval to one or more Covid vaccines.  

For now, the vaccines have emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA. This is the first time the government has granted an EUA for the entire population, which has raised questions about whether institutions can legally require vaccinations.

They can, according to a recent Stat News article written by three law professors. The authors note that before the pandemic, federal agencies like the FDA and CDC said that EUA vaccines could not be mandated. But the professors say that the federal law governing such vaccines requires only that people who get them be informed of the health risks.

Adding to the confusion, states with Republican governors, like Utah, have passed measures that bar institutions of higher education from imposing vaccine mandates. In early April, Florida governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order that forbids businesses and government agencies from requiring vaccine documentation.

In addition, anti-vaccine groups like Austin, Texas-based Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) have threatened to sue colleges like Rutgers and Princeton over their vaccination requirements. But Del Bigtree, ICAN’s CEO, can’t explain how his group has standing to sue a college. ICAN has a New York City-based plaintiff’s class action law firm, Siri & Glimstad, on retainer, he says. Partner Aaron Siri didn’t respond to email and phone requests for comment.

As for what sort of Covid protocols most colleges will adopt in the fall, “I suspect it will be a bit of a moving target,” says immunologist Gigi Gronvall, who is on the faculty at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. Hopkins has announced a vaccine requirement but has yet to specify whether it will require students and instructors to wear masks and practice social distancing. Though Gronvall says the likelihood of vaccinated people getting infected or transmitting the virus is “extremely low,” public health authorities “are always going to be more conservative than the data.”

Robert Schooley, chief of infectious diseases as UC San Diego Health, who advised the University of California on its vaccine mandate, predicts that most U.S. colleges will require students, professors and staff to be vaccinated before they return to campus. “I do think most universities will make vaccination mandatory (with medically appropriate exemptions),” he says, “except for those in states in which politicians choose to make it a political issue.”

Follow me on TwitterSend me a secure tip