Vaccine mandates are legal, normal and necessary

The following editorial appeared in the New York Daily News:

Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who fancies herself a stickler for rights of personal conscience, let stand Indiana University’s mandate requiring students be vaccinated against COVID, a sign that those straining to make principled objections to school- or employer-based immunization requirements have no legal legs to stand on. Leaders across the country must now follow the playbook of Gov. Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio and leading CEOS: Demand that eligible students and workers, especially those in public-facing jobs, get the jab.

By leaving the lower ruling in place, Barrett seconded the unanimous decision of a federal appeals court in Chicago. Reagan-appointed Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote: “Each university may decide what is necessary to keep other students safe in a congregate setting. Health exams and vaccinations against other diseases (measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, varicella, meningitis, influenza and more) are common requirements of higher education. Vaccination protects not only the vaccinated persons but also those who come in contact with them, and at a university close contact is inevitable.” He pointed to the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision upholding a Massachusetts law requiring all residents get vaccinated against smallpox or pay a fine. (Indiana, by contrast, allows for medical, religious or conscience-based objections, opening loopholes that are probably too large.)

Vaccine mandates are elementary, a basic part of the social contract, as one might explain to a kindergartener asking why mom and dad must present immunization papers to the school. But large swaths of America have somehow convinced themselves otherwise as they’ve been swept away by the deadly COVID culture wars.

So kudos to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for gearing up to impose a vaccine requirement on military personnel. To Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for doing the same for his agency’s 25,000-plus employees. And to the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, for following American Federation of Teachers’ president Randi Weingarten’s lead and backing mandates for its members.

We have a way out of COVID. You’ll only feel a tiny pinch.