CSU system, including Sac State, will require COVID vaccinations for all students, employees
The California State University system announced Tuesday that it would require all students, faculty and staff to receive a COVID-19 vaccination ahead of the fall term.
The CSU system previously planned to wait until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the available COVID-19 vaccines before instituting a vaccination requirement. But as COVID-19 cases continue to increase sharply across California due to the delta variant, CSU administrators said they reevaluated their plans.
The decision came a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that all government employees and health care workers in the state would be required to get the jab or face weekly test for the coronavirus.
The system joins other colleges and universities that are requiring vaccinations as the fall term approaches, though the issue has become a flashpoint. This week, a federal judge upheld Indiana University’s requirement for coronavirus vaccinations among its staff and students, the first but unlikely the last legal challenge over such a mandate.
“The current surge in COVID cases due to the spread of the highly infectious delta variant is an alarming new factor that we must consider as we look to maintain the health and well-being of students, employees and visitors to our campuses this fall,” said CSU Chancellor Joseph I. Castro in a news release. “Receiving a COVID vaccine continues to be the best way to mitigate the spread of the virus.”
The vaccination requirement will be in place at all 23 CSU campuses. In a Tuesday morning news release, CSU said that the deadline to receive a vaccine will vary from campus to campus due to differences in their academic calendars. At the latest, all students, faculty and staff across the system must receive vaccines by Sept. 30.
Under the new policy, anyone may request a religious and medical exemption from the vaccine requirement.
All employees are subject to the requirement, but the university system said they would not be penalized for not complying with the policy until CSU finishes conferring with its labor unions.
As of now, students and employees may receive any of the vaccines that received emergency authorization in the United States — the mRNA Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Some CSU campuses will be distributing vaccines directly, and all campuses will be able to help students and staff find locations to be vaccinated.
Dorit Reiss, a health law expert at the UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco told The Sacramento Bee in April that such a mandates would be legal — but only if at least one COVID-19 vaccine becomes fully approved by the FDA. Both the CSU, the nation’s largest four-year public university system, and UC, which has 10 campuses, already have several immunization requirements.
Reiss noted that the vaccines being used have only the FDA’s emergency-use authorization.
“There’s legal uncertainty over whether you can require a vaccine that’s under EUA,” Reiss said.
The news release added that the CSU system will continue to make some courses available virtually for students who do not wish to return to campus due to the vaccination requirement or for other reasons. But due to “resource limitations,” online options will not be as extensive as last school year and will “not allow for a campus’ or even a program’s full offerings to be made available virtually.”
The university system said they would announce their “final policy” in the coming days.
This story was originally published July 27, 2021 at 11:25 AM.