Administrators at City University of New York (CUNY) removed over 1,200 students from their fall classes over vaccine noncompliance. The CUNY system has made it mandatory for students to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“We are grateful the overwhelming majority of CUNY students enrolled in hybrid and in-person classes complied with the mandate following the university’s vaccination campaign that launched in March 2021 and continuous information about the vaccine mandate first shared starting in May 2021,” said a CUNY spokesman this week.
Columbia University, NYU and St. John’s have also all instituted vaccine mandates for students with the ostensible aim of protecting against coronavirus.
Per data obtained by the New York Post, student enrollment at CUNY has fallen by roughly 33,000 students at its 25 campuses over the past two academic years.
Unlike the student body, CUNY’s faculty and staff are not required to get the vaccine.
Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul said she wants to have a statewide vaccine mandate for all New York schools prior to the start of the next school year. Mayor-elect Eric Adams has signaled his backing for such a move.
In California, left-leaning school districts are grappling with trying to implement vaccine mandates amid furious pushback.
Los Angeles Unified School District had to delay enforcement of its vaccine mandate for students age 12 and older over concerns of how to move more than 30,000 unvaccinated students back into distance learning, as the policy stipulates.
In California, opposition to enforcement has come from within the Left on grounds of racial discrimination. As Politico notes:
One problem Los Angeles Unified faced as it weighed whether to impose its vaccine requirement for students is the disproportionate impact the move would have had on Black and Latino children. Only 60 percent of Black Los Angeles County residents 12 and up have gotten at least one dose. The vaccination rate among the county’s Latino residents 12 and up is 68 percent. The mandate requirement would have disproportionately moved students of color off campus.
Some states have taken action to protect college students from vaccine mandates.
Earlier this month, six Republican legislators on Nevada’s Legislative Commission blocked the state Board of Health’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for college students and state health and corrections workers from becoming permanent.
The move means the mandate went out of effect the 120-day timeline for the emergency regulation approved in August expired.
In Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation to protect employees from losing their jobs due to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The legislation establishes that “employees can choose from numerous exemptions, including but not limited to, health or religious concerns; pregnancy or anticipated future pregnancy; and past recovery from COVID-19.”
Small businesses that violate the Florida bill are to be fined $10,000 per employee violation; large companies are fined $50,000 per violation.
In Democrat-controlled states, localities are taking the initiative to protect citizens’ rights.
The city council of Oroville, California, has near-unanimously voted to declare the community a “Constitutional Republic City” in order to protect its citizens against what it deems unconstitutional state and federal mandates.
“Each and every mandate will be handled differently,” Oroville Vice Mayor Scott Thomson said. “Although we realize this virus is serious; we also believe that protecting the constitutional freedoms our citizens have is also something we take seriously. Our state representatives have been trying to get through to our governor for him to hear that just because something works well for big cities like Sacramento or San Francisco does not mean that the same thing holds true for rural areas like Oroville.”
“In a way, we are acting as a sanctuary city for our citizens and their rights and freedoms protected by the U.S. and state constitutions,” Thomson added.
In a recent TNA article, contributor Peter Rykowski argues that state legislators must exercise the principle of nullification. That is, refusing to comply with federal policies that violate the U.S. Constitution.
Rykowski contends:
Nullification is firmly grounded in the text of the U.S. Constitution, specifically Article VI. It states: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” This clearly implies that laws not in accordance with the Constitution are null and void.
Additionally, the 10th Amendment makes clear that all powers not granted by the Constitution to the federal government are reserved to the states and to the people. By enforcing this important constitutional provision alone, the states can push back against a significant amount of federal overreach.
As the fight for freedom accelerates, constitutionalists will have to engage at every level of government — from federal to state to local.
