The Mandate Maze
As colleges and universities end an incredibly challenging year and begin to prepare for the fall 2021 semester, among the more hot-button issues they are grappling with is whether they can or should mandate that students and/or employees receive COVID-19 vaccinations before returning to campus. Several institutions have already decided to require vaccines, others have opted not to do so and still others have found themselves caught up in what is becoming an ever more politically charged issue.
Now that COVID-19 vaccinations have become increasingly available to the public, the number of colleges and universities mandating them has soared. Rutgers University led the charge, announcing in late March that it would require students to be fully vaccinated before returning to campus in the fall. Fast-forward to today, and approximately 400 campuses have announced student vaccine requirements of some sort.
While these institutions’ policies vary in scope and applicability, they largely require that all students intending to return to campus receive a full COVID-19 vaccination prior to beginning the fall 2021 semester. Only a handful of colleges and universities exempt students who do not live on campus. By contrast, some higher education systems, such as the University of North Carolina, have already announced that they will not require vaccinations for the upcoming semester.
