AG Miyares says Virginia colleges and universities can’t require a Covid vaccine

[Anonymous]

Aw, it’s his first legal opinion! Cute. But potentially deadly, and riddled with typos.

[Anonymous]

Kind of a communications fail that he did not link to the opinion itself in his tweet.

[Anonymous]

Reading both opinions, it is not clear to me what the correct answer is, but there is a glaring omission in Miyares' opinion that suggests to me Herring's may be better-reasoned.

Herring's April 2021 opinion on the issue essentially is that the Virginia code provides a broad grant of discretion to boards of visitors to set policies and regulations to maintain campus health and safety and there is noting in the Virginia code that prohibits boards of visitors from imposing a covid vaccine requirement during a public health emergency. Other bodies, such as the General Assembly and the Commissioner of Health, can also create health-related requirements, but this does not inherently strip authority from the boards of visitors from also acting to impose health and safety-related rules. Therefore, the boards of visitors are not prohibited from conditioning in-person attendance on receipt of an approved covid-19 vaccine.

Miyares' reasoning is that, notwithstanding the broad general grant of authority by the General Assembly to boards of visitors, the General Assembly has created some statutory requirements in the area of vaccine requirements and that implicitly means the boards of visitors do not have authority to regulate in this area. The Virginia code provision he cites does itself say anything about vaccine requirements imposed by the General Assembly being the exclusive list of vaccines that may be required for in-person attendance, however, and Miyares does not cite to any code provision or case law stating that, where the General Assembly has chosen to act in an area, the boards of visitors are prohibited from also acting in that area to supplement the General Assembly's enactments. It may be that such code or case law does exist, but it is a pretty notable omission not to include it if it does.

[Anonymous]

Thank you. This just made my child's decision a little easier. He can take Tech off his list. Yeah, yeah, yeah who cares as they have so many applications and admits. I care and he can go somewhere where vaccinations like covid, measles, meningitis, and hep A are required. We are out of state anyway, so what difference would it make paying OOS to one state versus another where common sense prevails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you. This just made my child's decision a little easier. He can take Tech off his list. Yeah, yeah, yeah who cares as they have so many applications and admits. I care and he can go somewhere where vaccinations like covid, measles, meningitis, and hep A are required. We are out of state anyway, so what difference would it make paying OOS to one state versus another where common sense prevails.

+100. Both my kids were accepted and declined. Both of my kids are oos and it would have saved a lot of money but that and their poor reputation for allowing students with disabilities accommodations made it an easy no for them.

[Anonymous]

What an embarrassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aw, it’s his first legal opinion! Cute. But potentially deadly, and riddled with typos.

LOL. They will anyway.

It's actually rather funny how everyone is just ignoring the directives of the new administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aw, it’s his first legal opinion! Cute. But potentially deadly, and riddled with typos.

reading the last paragraph, does that mean that Virginia colleges can require measles or meningitis vaccines? I would guess that the opinion is just poorly written, but the language is plain

[Anonymous]

sorry, can't require

[Anonymous]

glad to go OOS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aw, it’s his first legal opinion! Cute. But potentially deadly, and riddled with typos.

reading the last paragraph, does that mean that Virginia colleges can require measles or meningitis vaccines? I would guess that the opinion is just poorly written, but the language is plain

No they will not be able to single out one vaccine. We are going back to the dark ages.

[Anonymous]

God Virginia you are embarrassing right now.

[Anonymous]

This is not good for recruiting top faculty to VA universities. The superstars always have multiple choices and they will go elsewhere where they don't have to deal with red state politics creating a less safe work environment and class disruptions due to students constantly quarantining. There will also be existing faculty who go on the market to get away from the BS if it gets bad enough.

[Anonymous]

This is utterly ridiculous. We had a viral meningitis case in my dorm in college within a day health staff was in the lobby checking our rec9rds and sticking us with meningitis shots.

[Anonymous]

Nice!