A federal judge ruled on Sunday against a legal challenge to the Indiana University system’s vaccine mandate, effectively upholding the requirement that all students be vaccinated against Covid-19 before returning to campus in the fall unless they qualify for an exemption. The ruling sends a strong signal that the lawsuits filed in response to colleges’ vaccine requirements may face steep odds in court.
Eight undergraduate and graduate students at Indiana filed a lawsuit against the university in June, arguing that the mandate — which also applies to employees — was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. But Judge Damon R. Leichty of the U.S. District Court for Northern Indiana denied the request in favor of the university’s “discretion to act reasonably in protecting the public’s health.”
“Recognizing the students’ significant liberty to refuse unwanted medical treatment, the Fourteenth Amendment permits Indiana University to pursue a reasonable and due process of vaccination in the legitimate interest of public health for its students, faculty, and staff,” said the court’s ruling. “Today, on this preliminary record, the university has done so for its campus communities.”
A similar lawsuit, filed last month in the U.S. District Court for Eastern California on behalf of three students at California State University at Chico, is pending. And two students and a parent are suing the University of Connecticut over its vaccine mandate.
Indiana is one of several states that have enacted laws banning businesses and government entities from requiring coronavirus “vaccine passports” or proof of vaccination.
Under Indiana’s mandate, students can request exemption for religious, ethical, and medical reasons or if they opt to attend the university remotely. Students who aren’t vaccinated and don’t qualify for exemptions, however, will have their class registrations canceled and won’t be allowed to participate in campus activities, according to a statement on IU’s website.
Because the state’s law prohibits a “vaccine passport” and not a vaccine requirement, the court ruling noted, the university is allowed to mandate vaccinations.
Some nearby colleges aren’t following Indiana University’s example. Purdue University will not require the Covid vaccine for students in the fall. “We’re with a very large majority of American colleges and universities who are not planning to require the vaccine this fall,” said Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., Purdue’s president, on a Monday morning interview with MSNBC. “I think it’s mainly a practical decision.”
Purdue will offer students a choice between vaccination or regular testing and mandatory quarantine if exposed to Covid-19. Daniels said university officials have yet to take a stance on whether masks will be mandated for unvaccinated students.
Some public-health experts have pointed to vaccine mandates as a reliable way to ensure a safe fall semester, especially as the more-transmissible Delta variant gains ground in the United States. But colleges and universities remain split on the decision of whether to require vaccinations or strongly recommend them.
In Ohio, public schools and colleges will be banned from requiring vaccinations not granted full approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under a bill signed last week by Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican. (The agency has granted emergency-use authorization of the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccines, not full approval.)
But the bill doesn’t take effect until October, which gives Cleveland State University a window. The public university was one of the first institutions in America to announce its vaccine mandate, which applies only to students living on campus. The university confirmed to Cleveland.com last week that it would continue to require vaccines for residents.
According to The Chronicle’s tracker of vaccine mandates, the Indiana system and Cleveland State are outliers. Of the 246 public campuses that have issued some kind of vaccine requirement, only 10 — the nine Indiana system campuses and Cleveland State — are located in states that voted last year to re-elect Donald J. Trump as president.
