Health Conditions
Bill to End Funding for Colleges That Mandate COVID Vaccines Contains Loopholes That Leave Med Students at Risk
Proposed legislation to codify into law President Donald Trump’s executive order ending federal funding for colleges and universities that mandate the COVID-19 vaccine fails to protect students studying health sciences, according to No College Mandates. The group is petitioning the bill’s sponsors to close the loophole.
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An organization opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates in higher education is pushing to amend a bill that ends federal funding for colleges and universities that mandate the vaccines, but leaves loopholes that may compel health sciences students to take the shot.
In February, President Donald Trump issued an executive order ending federal funding for any schools that continued to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for students. At the time, 15 colleges and universities still mandated the vaccine.
Since then, some programs within higher education have continued to mandate the shots for students studying to be healthcare practitioners — from dental hygienists to doctors — in part because the executive order didn’t provide specific guidance on health sciences programs, whose rules sometimes differ from the universities’ general rules.
Many other programs that don’t mandate the shots for their students partner with hospitals, clinics and other medical institutions for clinical practicums, where students face COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
As a result of these two loopholes, many health sciences students still face COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
In April, Rep. Mark Messmer (R-Ind.) introduced the No Vaccine Mandates in Higher Education Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill, which has eight co-sponsors, is intended to codify Trump’s executive order into law.
However, No College Mandates, which played a central role in contesting the mandates imposed on students at over 1,000 colleges at the height of the pandemic, says the bill must be amended to explicitly protect students studying to be healthcare professionals.
“Since the spring of 2021, health science students have faced some of the most oppressive and tyrannical of all COVID-19 vaccine policies,” Lucia Sinatra, No College Mandates co-founder, told The Defender. “For far too long, health science students have been overlooked in the quest to end college student COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and that needs to end.”
No College Mandates said in a letter that there are many programs, such as the medical doctor program at Emory School of Medicine and all health science programs at Creighton University in Omaha, where students must take the COVID-19 shot in order to study.
The organization said the faculty in those programs are not subject to the same vaccine requirements.
Sinatra said Messmer’s proposed bill is a “good start,” because it will defund institutions of higher education that still mandate the COVID-19 vaccine. However, she said it “doesn’t go far enough in defining what constitutes such an institution,” leaving vague implementation guidelines and a legal loophole through which health sciences students may be compelled to take the shot.
She said the federal government has “dropped the ball” on specifying in its guidance that all degree-granting programs at all health institutions should be included in the definition of “higher education.”
Sinatra wrote in a Substack post:
“For the bill to definitively end ALL COVID-19 vaccine mandates in higher education, it must be amended to explicitly include ALL teaching programs required for health science students to complete their degree.
“In other words, not only must federal funding be removed from ALL colleges, universities and other institutions that continue to mandate COVID-19 vaccines, but also ALL teaching programs at hospitals and clinical partners with whom these institutions contract to provide practical training so students can freely enter practicums, clinical rotations, internships, and residencies which all degree granting institutions require to graduate.”
No College Mandates sent a letter to the bill’s co-sponsors, asking them to amend it to explicitly include all such programs.
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The organization says it has received positive feedback from legislators and is hopeful the amendments will be incorporated.
The organization is also asking the public to reach out to their representatives using its letter and to add a personal note. People who live in a district represented by a co-sponsor can also submit online commentary.
“It is urgent that we get more support around our proposed amendments,” Sinatra said. “Together, we can make a huge difference if we let the representatives know the critical nature of our proposed amendments prior to the bill becoming law.”
Related articles in The Defender- Trump Ended COVID Vaccine Mandates for Schools — But That’s Not Enough
- Breaking: Trump to Strip Federal Funding From Schools That Mandate COVID Vaccines
- Rutgers Set to Kick Out Students Today Unless They Comply With COVID Vaccine Mandate
- ‘Important Conversations Never Had’: Colleges Quietly End Mandates Without Addressing Harms
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