Congressman Pushes for End to College COVID-19 Shot Mandates as Dozens Hold Out

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) speaks on the House floor in Washington on Oct. 3, 2023. (House of Representatives/Screenshot via NTD)

A congressman is calling for the immediate end of COVID-19 shot mandates at colleges nationwide, calling the policy unethical and anti-science.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) called out each school that continued to mandate the COVID-19 shot during a congressional hearing on May 17, demanding that they “end their status as bastions of ignorance in American higher education,” while pointing out that it had been more than a year since the emergency was declared over.

“It is so beyond the pale to continue to have these mandates that I think it is important to specifically call out the universities that still have them,” Mr. Kiley said.

“Of course, we now know there was never any public health justification for universities to have COVID vaccine mandates, and it certainly was not consistent with the values of our country or the values of higher education, but to still have them now is still beyond the pale, so utterly absurd.”

Mr. Kiley took time to read into the congressional record the individual names of the schools that continue to impose mandates on their students.

“I’m calling on these 30 universities to end your COVID vaccine mandates immediately and end your status as bastions of ignorance in American higher education,” he said.

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Except for a handful of remaining institutions, the number of schools still requiring the shot has plummeted as the past 2 1/2 years have seen it increasingly become mired in controversy.

On March 5, Harvard University announced on its website that it was ending its COVID-19 shot requirement, posting: “Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) will no longer require students to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. We strongly recommend that all members of the Harvard community stay up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters if eligible.”

A month later, Rutgers University, which was the first to make the shot mandatory, announced on its website that it had dropped its COVID-19 shot mandate.

“As of April 1, 2024, Rutgers no longer requires students, faculty, staff, and university affiliates to be immunized against the COVID-19 virus,” the university’s statement reads.

The website added that “face coverings are not required at the university but are welcomed.”

Many believed that the policy change at Rutgers, the last major university to continue the mandate, was a turning point. Some hoped it would restore individual health freedom for students across the nation and end the era of vaccine mandates at colleges.

However, although every major school has discontinued the COVID-19 shot mandates, the requirement remains in effect for students at 28 out of the top 800 colleges in the United States, according to recent data acquired by No College Mandates.

More than 80 percent of Americans took the original COVID-19 shots after officials said that they would effectively prevent contraction and stop the spread of the disease. However, once it was revealed that the shots didn’t work as promised, interest in the subsequent booster decreased dramatically.

Additionally, some adverse health outcomes are believed to have been caused by the shots. COVID-19 shots have been named the primary suspect in more than 1.5 million adverse event reports, according to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database. The numbers could be even higher. An FDA-funded study out of Harvard found that VAERS cases represent less than 1 percent of vaccine adverse events.

“I think it’s just utterly unbelievable that any university can still have these mandates in place,” Mr. Kiley previously told The Epoch Times. “Even Harvard has gotten rid of theirs, and they have been the worst in many ways. So the question remains: How can these other institutions still continue with a mandate at this point in time?”

If a small number of universities continue to impose the mandate on their students, Congress has tools at its disposal, including withholding federal tax dollars, according to Mr. Kiley.

“I am on the committee of jurisdiction, so we do have oversight responsibilities, given the vast amount of funding that goes into higher education,” he said. “I think there could be avenues we could pursue from a legislative perspective, including through funding, to see that we don’t have this kind of unscientific flaunting that lacks any hint of rational thought.”

Lucia Sinatra, co-founder of No College Mandates—which describes itself as a “group of concerned parents, doctors, nurses, professors, students, and other college stakeholders working towards the common goal of ending COVID-19 vaccine mandates”—told The Epoch Times that the continuance of the COVID-19 shot mandates is not only anti-science but also unethical.

“At this point, it’s laughable because you have the most elite universities in the United States, like Harvard and Rutgers, [that have] all dropped their requirements,“ Ms. Sinatra said. ”Then you have these small schools that are holding on to the mandate, for what exactly?”

Health care students are being forced to get updated booster shots, and other schools have varied proof of vaccination requirements, according to Ms. Sinatra.

She said that growing recognition that health risks associated with the vaccine could outweigh any potential benefit means that the dozens of schools that continue to mandate the shot are placing thousands of students at risk.

“It’s mind-blowing the ridiculousness of it, but yet they continue,” Ms. Sinatra said.