Mandate vaccines at NC's public universities

‘Pretty please’ won’t cut it anymore. 

With COVID-19 cases rapidly on the rise, it’s time for UNC campuses to require all students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated against the virus.

The UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty Executive Committee adopted a resolution last week that seeks a delegation of authority from the UNC System Office to require proof of vaccination from all employees and students and to adopt masking requirements based on the viral load in the community and capacity of the health-care system.1

In response, UNC President Peter Hans and the UNC System Office issued a policy saying all employees must be vaccinated or, if they aren’t vaccinated, tested weekly.2

Though such a policy was adopted for students in May,3 it’s astonishing it wasn’t already in place for faculty and staff just weeks before students return to campus.

Call it Mandate Lite.

Six former state health directors in North Carolina also wrote Hans last week calling for a vaccine mandate. 

“The current UNC System policy allows students and employees to opt out of COVID 19 vaccination and enter a regular testing program,” the health directors wrote. “This policy is not strong enough.

“There is enormous risk that without a mandate for COVID 19 vaccination, the burden of new cases and hospitalizations will overwhelm the University campuses’ abilities to quarantine and isolate cases effectively. It will be horrific should a death of a student, staff or faculty member occur that could have been prevented by mandatory vaccination.”4

The health directors – who place public health ahead of politics – noted that other state universities across the country have adopted vaccine mandates. Many of UNC-Chapel Hill’s peer institutions have as well:

Duke University
University of Michigan
University of Virginia students
University of California at Berkeley
UCLA
What do these schools know that the UNC System doesn’t?

IF REPORTS ARE ACCURATE, university staff may be the most vulnerable: UNC-Chapel Hill Provost Robert Blouin told the faculty committee that of nearly 25,000 students who have responded so far (out of a total of 29,500 students), 94% attested that they’ve been vaccinated. Yet 82% of faculty and just 55% of staff have been vaccinated, Blouin said.5

The UNC System Office cites an obscure state commission that must approve required vaccinations at state universities in North Carolina – and that normally takes 18 months to do so.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Indiana – a Donald Trump appointee in Mike Pence’s state – recently upheld a vaccine mandate for 90,000 students at Indiana University.6

And the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued updated guidance in May that an employer can require a COVID-19 vaccination for all employees entering the workplace.7

With the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus surging particularly among the unvaccinated, North Carolina’s major hospital systems – including UNC Health – already require their employees to be vaccinated.8

So have large private employers like SAS Institute9 and Cisco10 for employees who want to work in the office.

Even the military is taking action. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced Monday that he will make vaccinations mandatory by mid-September for the nation’s 1.3 million active-duty troops.11

In a letter sharing the Executive Committee’s request with UNC System leaders, Faculty Chair Dr. Mimi Chapman said that with COVID-19 rising even among the vaccinated, “All scientific data demonstrate that vaccines and masks are our best tools to counter this virus and this variant, preserve in-person learning, and support the health of our economy.”

Chapman noted that as recently as 1989, UNC-Chapel Hill and other UNC campuses required booster shots to contain a sudden measles outbreak in the state.

“Given that the UNC System has been very clear that it expects nothing less than a full, residential experience for students in the fall semester, it is only right that campuses have the delegated authority to use all available tools, including mandated vaccination for faculty, staff, and students, to make that experience possible and safe,” she said, adding that other UNC campuses might have different views.

We’re playing with people’s lives here. So let’s do what’s right for our students, our faculty, our staff and the communities that surround our prized public universities: Let’s give UNC campuses authority to mandate vaccines.

1 https://facultygov.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/261/2021/08/FEC-Resolution_Requesting-Delegated-Authority-to-UNC-CH.pdf.
2 https://www.northcarolina.edu/wp-content/uploads/reports-and-documents/president-docs/so-guidance-fall-2021-covid-mitigation-measures-5aug2021.pdf. 
3 https://carolinatogether.unc.edu/2021/05/27/student-covid-19-vaccine-certification/.
4 http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2021/08/06/former-state-health-directors-to-unc-system-president-time-to-mandate-covid-19-vaccination-at-unc-schools/#sthash.8ixgIpZM.dpbs.
5 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article253262893.html.
6 https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/07/19/iu-vaccine-lawsuit-mandate-judge/.
7 https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-covid-19-and-ada-rehabilitation-act-and-other-eeo-laws?, K.5.
8 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article252953978.html; https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/cone-health-hospital-to-require-covid-19-vaccinations-for-all-employees/83-0091f7e5-4185-4290-a62e-2434e679e5d5.
9 https://www.wraltechwire.com/2021/07/30/sas-requiring-vaccinations-before-allowing-employees-to-return-to-offices/
10 https://www.wraltechwire.com/2021/07/30/cisco-sas-require-vaccinations-for-in-office-work-heres-what-other-nc-employers-are-doing/.
11 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/us/politics/vaccine-mandate-military-covid.html.