Indiana Court Ruling Paves way for Colleges to Require Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination

A federal judge rejected a request from students to block Indiana University’s vaccine mandate, clearing the way for the school to require students to get the COVID-19 shot to attend class, writes Erin Schumaker for ABC News.

The ruling may set a precedent for future cases about COVID-19 vaccine mandates at universities, according to Eric Feldman, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, though he cautioned against generalizing too much from the case at hand.

“We’ve got a Trump-appointed judge in a relatively conservative district, dealing with an issue that I think will be before a variety of courts,” Feldman said. “My guess is we’re going to see other opinions that track this opinion.”

The lawsuit alleged that the university violated students’ rights as well as Indiana’s recently passed vaccine passport law, which prohibits state and local governments from creating or requiring vaccine passports. In the lawsuit, the students claimed they were being coerced into vaccination and that if they did not comply, they would face “the threat of virtual expulsion from school.”

Read the full report here.