Virginia’s attorney general released a legal opinion Friday saying that under Virginia law, vaccine mandates for college students are illegal.
“Absent specific authority conferred by the General Assembly, public institutions of higher education in Virginia may not require vaccination against COVID-19 as a general condition of students’ enrollment or in-person attendance,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in his opinion.
The Virginia Star spoke to a source close to Miyares about the ramifications of the opinion.
“An opinion provides legal guidance to the person asking for it. The Virginia Supreme Court has stated that they carry weight in court, so they are often used by lawyers during their arguments in court,” the source told The Star. “They are not equivalent to law and there is no direct consequence if not followed. However, if an individual decided to sue a university for not following the Attorney General’s guidance, they could use the Attorney General’s opinion in court.”
Miyares further explained his opinion in a press release.
“Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the General Assembly has amended other statues to address pandemic-related issues,” that release said. “To date, the General Assembly has not amended the specific immunizations enumerated in (state code) to include immunization for COVID-19, and boards of visitors may not exercise and implied power to require a certain vaccine when a specific statue [sic] governing vaccination excludes it.”
The opinion was released during a time when COVID-19 restrictions are under fire in the Commonwealth.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) banned Virginia’s public schools from mandating masks on his first day in office. In a flurry of executive orders that day, he also banned employers from compelling vaccines among their employees, leading Virginia’s public universities to drop their employee vaccine mandates.
In Virginia, there is currently one lawsuit pending against a public school district for requiring COVID-19 shots for student-athletes. But that lawsuit, which is in Virginia Beach, is at the high school level.
There are no active lawsuits against Virginia’s public universities for compelling vaccines among students.
A federal appellate court this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by students at Indiana University over that school’s vaccine mandate.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Jason Miyares” by Jason Miyares.
