Students, staff at OSU must be vaccinated
Ohio State welcomed students back to campus Tuesday with a major announcement: the university will now require them, faculty, staff and the campus community to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
OSU President Kristina M. Johnson said in an email to the campus community that they are now required to have at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Oct. 15. For people receiving a twodose vaccine, both doses must be received by Nov. 15.
The university’s vaccination requirement mirrors the policy at Wexner Medical Center, which announced earlier this month it would add the COVID-19 vaccines to the hospital system’s non-discretionary vaccine list. More than 73% of Ohio State’s community has had at least one shot already, Johnson said.
“There is strong support for this requirement in our community, including student, faculty, staff and university leadership,” Johnson said in her email. “From the beginning of the pandemic, we have made data-driven, science-based decisions and followed the guidance of medical and public health
“Each individual campus has to do what they think is best to protest the health and safety of its students, staff and faculty. Each university will make independent decisions based on what they feel is best.”
Bruce Johnson Inter-university Council of Ohio president
professionals, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state and local public health partners.”
Johnson said there will be a “limited set of exemptions” for those who don’t want to be vaccinated, and exemptions will be assessed on a case-by-case basis by Employee Health and Student Health Services. Exemptions fall into three categories: medical, religious and personal reasons, according to OSU’S website. A full list of exemptions is not listed on the website.
If an exemption request is approved, the individual will be required to complete an online course about “appropriate workplace conduct to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus as an unvaccinated individual,” complete weekly COVID-19 testing and wear a face mask at all times while indoors, even if the university updates its current protocols, according to OSU’S website.
Current students who refuse to be vaccinated without an exemption by the deadline will be ineligible to participate in on-campus experiences beginning in spring semester, including in-person classes or living in residence halls.
“We’re not disenrolling students, but we won’t enroll them on campus next semester,” Johnson said in an MSNBC interview Wednesday. “We’ll ask them to take their classes online.”
Students who intend to enroll for the first time next semester will be subject to the same vaccination requirements to attend in-person classes, live in university housing and take part in other oncampus experiences.
Faculty members without an exemption who don’t get vaccinated are at risk of having their electronic resources removed, including access to their university email accounts and logging into their computers, as well as “further progressive discipline.”
The decision to mandate the vaccine follows Monday’s announcement that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted full approval to the Pfizerbiontech vaccine.
In June, Gov. Mike Dewine signed HB 244, which, among other things, banned public schools and universities from requiring COVID-19 vaccines while they were still under emergency use authorization. The bill officially goes into effect in mid-october, but the amendment’s language prohibiting COVID-19 vaccines is largely moot.
Ohio State is the second public university in Ohio to require COVID-19 vaccines, but the first to require it for its entire campus community. Cleveland State University had been requiring the vaccine for residential students, which make up about 10% of its student population. Other Ohio colleges and universities with vaccine mandates were private institutions, and therefore unaffected by the law.
Tuesday’s announcement has prompted some to wonder if other public universities will follow the lead of Ohio’s largest university and take the step to require vaccines now that it’s legally permissible.
Bruce Johnson, president of the Inter-university Council of Ohio (IUC), said he doesn’t want to characterize any other university choosing to require COVID-19 vaccines as “following the leader.” He noted that IUC has been in conversation with all of its member schools about the FDA’S decision to approve Pfizer’s vaccine.
“Each individual campus has to do what they think is best to protest the health and safety of its students, staff and faculty,” Bruce Johnson said. “Each university will make independent decisions based on what they feel is best.”
Colleges and universities are in a tough position, he said. Students don’t just learn and work on campus, but they live together as well.
Bruce Johnson said he’s confident that university leaders are considering the “mountain of evidence” from scientists and health officials regarding the vaccines’ efficacy. He also called on state lawmakers to allow universities the opportunity to make these decisions for their campus communities.
“Anything that would prohibit that would be bad,” he said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, no other Ohio university had officially made the decision to require COVID-19 vaccines.
Miami University sent an email to students Wednesday morning to say it was “carefully considering” the possibility of a vaccine mandate. Just a day earlier, nearly 200 Miami faculty members had signed a letter to President Gregory Crawford urging the university to require COVID-19 vaccinations.
Ohio University spokeswoman Carly Leatherwood said Wednesday that the university is “still evaluating and discussing internally and with public health experts” whether or not to require vaccinations. “If or when our policy were to change, we will notify the University community accordingly,” she said.
Columbus State Community College is not currently planning to require COVID-19 vaccines for students, college spokesman David Wayne said. shendrix@dispatch.com @sheridan120