Universities Requiring COVID-19 Vaccines for the 2021-2022 School Year

More than 30 U.S. colleges and universities announced this month they are requiring students to get COVID-19 vaccines before returning to the campus for the fall 2021 semester, CNBC reports. It is not uncommon for schools to set immunization requirements for enrolled students but to mandate faculty and staff also be vaccinated might cause some legal issues, according to some law professors. Nonetheless, as of last week, about four post-secondary schools have reported they will be requiring faculty and staff to get vaccinated, too.

California State University, which has 23 campuses in the state, and the University of California, which has 10 campuses, jointly announced last week that students, faculty, and staff—including housekeepers and custodians—must be vaccinated against COVID-19. However, this requirement will not take effect until one or more of the current COVID-19 vaccines receive “full authorization” from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are widely available, KUSI-TV reports. All the vaccines currently available have emergency-use authorization from FDA. Both university systems will allow for medical or religious exemptions.

Dorit Reiss, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, told National Public Radio, “Most universities have the power to require vaccines. But it does depend on what the college can do generally on vaccines and what they’ve done in the past.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance in December that said no current law would prevent employers from requiring vaccines or needing proof of vaccination from their employees.

NPR reports that colleges struggled to control outbreaks on campus as some were resuming classes in fall 2020. Therefore, Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, told CNBC that more institutions are expected to add their own mandates.

Other colleges who are requiring faculty and staff to get vaccinated include
the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, and Morgan State University in Baltimore.

There are going to be “legal challenges because the anti-vaccine movement is already preparing for them,” Reiss added.