After Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) wrote a legal opinion last week saying that vaccine mandates for public university students are illegal, several of the state’s largest schools have backed off their COVID-19 vaccine requirements.
“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 opinion was just that – an opinion. It was not binding and had no legal authority on its face. A source close to Miyares explained to The Virginia Star exactly what the opinion meant.
“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.”
But it appears that Miyares’ declaration was enough to intimidate Virginia’s universities.
After backlash from students, and in the wake of Miyares’ opinion, George Mason University ended its COVID-19 booster vaccine requirement. It will also no longer force unvaccinated students to take weekly COVID-19 tests.
Virginia Tech cited Miyares’ opinion as the reason for ending its COVID-19 mandate protocols.
“Last week, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares issued a legal opinion concerning vaccine requirements that reverses the preceding attorney general’s opinion upon which our vaccine policy was based,” President Tim Sands said in a letter to the school community. “Consequently, Virginia Tech will no longer require students to be vaccinated as a condition of enrollment or in-person instruction, effective immediately. Federal regulations may still require students who work in specific settings to be vaccinated, receive the booster when eligible, and upload their health information.”
After mentioning Miyares’ opinion, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan conceded in a letter that the school would end its COVID-19 vaccine requirement, though it claimed that the decision was not made based on the legal opinion.
“Because we have such a small number of students who have not yet received the booster, we decided early last week – based on the advice of our student affairs team – that we will not disenroll students who have not yet received their booster, but will continue to encourage them to do so,” that letter said.
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) also ended its COVID-19 vaccine requirement, citing the legal opinion and its high vaccination rate.
“Our high vaccination rates and ongoing mitigation efforts – combined with the recent legal opinion from the Attorney General for the Commonwealth that COVID-19 vaccines cannot be required for students – has led VCU to end requiring student vaccinations and boosters for the spring semester,” the school said in a release.
So did Radford University.
“Consistent with a legal opinion issued by the Virginia Attorney General on January 26, 2022, Radford University will no longer require COVID-19 vaccinations or booster shots for students as a general condition of enrollment or in-person attendance,” that school said. “Weekly testing for students not fully vaccinated is no longer required.”
All of the schools are currently still enforcing their individual mask mandate policies, and all of them are also still encouraging students to take the vaccine if they have not done so already.
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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 Glenn Youngkin. Background Photo “The Rotunda at the University of Virginia” by Aaron Josephson.
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