Exploring the Legality of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

Q: Can employers, colleges and universities require COVID-19 vaccinations?

A: Generally, they may require immunizations. But there is some uncertainty about the legality of mandating vaccines authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

FULL QUESTION

Does federal law prohibit employers and other institutions from requiring the COVID-19 vaccine?

FULL ANSWER

According to a list maintained by The Chronicle of Higher Education, more than 200 colleges and universities are “requiring [COVID-19] vaccines of at least some students or employees” ahead of the fall semester.

Other employers are requiring — or at least considering a requirement — that their workers be vaccinated against the disease, as well.

Is that legal? 

There is no federal law that says vaccines cannot be required for employees or students. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: “Whether an employer may require or mandate COVID-19 vaccination is a matter of state or other applicable law.”

In updated guidance issued in December, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission implied that employers can have a mandatory vaccination policy, including for COVID-19, as long as employers comply with federal laws stipulating that reasonable accommodations should be made for workers who cannot be immunized because of a disability or religious reason.

Employers also may be subject to collective bargaining agreements that require them to negotiate with employee unions before mandating vaccines as a condition of employment, as the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation has noted.

But some employers — particularly in the health care industry — already have a history of requiring certain vaccinations, such as for influenza, for their workers.

In addition, a 2017 survey of 129 of the top U.S. colleges and universities found that 94% of them had at least one prematriculation immunization requirement for students. The average was 3.53 required immunizations, for diseases such as hepatitis B and measles.

However, there remains some uncertainty about the legality of institutions mandating vaccinations using products that have not been fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Emergency Use Authorization vs. Full Approval

As we have explained, the three COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. have all received an emergency use authorization, or EUA, rather than the standard full licensure, which is called a biologics license application, or BLA. 

On May 7, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they have initiated the final BLA approval process for their jointly-produced vaccine. But Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — the makers of the other two authorized vaccines — still have not said when they will do the same.

Update, Aug. 27, 2021: The FDA approved the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Aug. 23 for people 16 years of age and older. 

Update, April 19, 2022: The FDA approved the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 31 for people 18 years of age and older.  

Typically, the standards are less stringent for EUAs. Under an EUA, regulators must determine that the product “may be effective” and the “known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks.” However, for the three COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA set up special, more rigorous EUA requirements that resemble the process for a BLA. The FDA required “at least one well-designed Phase 3 clinical trial that demonstrates the vaccine’s safety and efficacy in a clear and compelling manner” and wanted to see at least two months of follow-up data on half or more of the participants. 

But to some legal observers, the current authorization status of the vaccines means they cannot yet be required by employers and others. 

In a Feb. 16 post for the Health Affairs blog, Efthimios Parasidis, a professor of law and public health at the Ohio State University, and Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, concluded that, “Although EUAs for Covid-19 vaccines may help society overcome the wrath of the pandemic, mandates for such vaccines are unlikely to pass legal muster.” 

They pointed to a provision in the 2004 federal law that established EUAs — specifically the provision that requires informational disclosures for individuals offered a medical product authorized for emergency use.

“Specifically, under 21 U.S.C. § 360bbb-3(e)(1)(A)(ii)(III), each individual must be informed ‘of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product, of the consequences, if any, of refusing administration of the product, and of the alternatives to the product that are available and of their benefits and risks,'” Parasidis and Kesselheim wrote. 

“Although no court has interpreted this provision, the first segment of the subclause suggests that mandates are categorically prohibited, since each person must have ‘the option to accept or refuse.'”

Other law and health policy experts disagree.

“There are few to no legal barriers to employers or schools requiring vaccines being distributed under EUAs,” according to an April 5 opinion piece written by three legal experts for the health news website STAT. The coauthors were Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at the University of California Hastings College of Law; and I. Glenn Cohen and Carmel Shachar of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

They counter argued that the EUA statute actually applies to the actions of federal officials — such as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — not private actors, including employers and post-secondary schools. 

“Private employees are generally ‘at will,’ meaning they can be terminated for any reason that is not explicitly illegal,” the authors wrote. “Those arguing that the EUA statute prohibits mandates by at-will employers are claiming that this federal law is changing existing state employment law on the topic by mere implication. They are reading in a broad prohibition covering all employers and universities in the U.S. that is not, in fact, in the statute. Such broad preemption would require, at a minimum, clearer language.”

Also, because individuals must be given information about “the consequences, if any, of refusing administration of the product,” that “clearly” means “consequences for refusal can coexist with the option to refuse,” said Holly Fernandez Lynch, a presidential assistant professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Govind Persad, an assistant professor of law at the University of Denver.

“The FDA doesn’t specify what those consequences might be, but it also doesn’t limit them,” they wrote in a May 4 opinion piece for the Washington Post. “If Congress or the FDA had meant to remove the authority to mandate vaccines — an authority traditionally left to state and local governments — the emergency use authorization statute and guidance would have needed to be much clearer on that point.”

Fernandez Lynch and Persad suggested the consequences for refusing vaccination could include “job loss, fines, one more year of Zoom college, or exclusion from flights, concerts or bars.” All may be unpopular options, but “these are choices nonetheless,” they said.

In their opinion piece, however, Parasidis and Kesselheim asserted that the statute’s language on the consequences of refusing to be vaccinated is most plausibly a reference to only the “health risks of refusing an EUA product during a public health emergency,” such as an increased risk of contracting or transmitting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

“A review of the Congressional Record reveals no mention of allowing the government or private entities the ability to mandate administration of EUA products,” the professors wrote.

But absent any state or local laws specifically permitting or prohibiting mandates for EUA vaccines, determining the legality of such requirements will likely come down to future court decisions.

Currently, there are at least two pending federal lawsuits that will test the issue: one filed by a county corrections officer in New Mexico, and another filed by a group of Los Angeles public school workers. The plaintiffs in both cases argue that their government employers are illegally mandating EUA vaccines as a condition of employment.

Legal analysts expect that there will be more lawsuits, including against private employers and colleges and universities.

Update, July 20, 2021: On July 18, a federal judge upheld Indiana University’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement, denying the student plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to block the policy. The plaintiffs had cited their constitutional right to due process under the 14th Amendment. In a 101-page ruling, Judge Damon R. Leichty of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana wrote that “the Fourteenth Amendment permits Indiana University to pursue a reasonable and due process of vaccination in the legitimate interest of public health for its students, faculty, and staff.”   

“Indiana University insisting on vaccinations for its campus communities is rationally related to ensuring the public health of students, faculty, and staff this fall,” wrote Leichty, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump in 2019. “Stemming illness, hospitalizations, or deaths at the university level hardly proves irrational.”

Update, Aug. 13, 2021: On Aug. 12, Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected the student plaintiffs’ challenge to Indiana University’s vaccine mandate. Barrett denied the request for an injunction without comment and without referring the matter to the full court.  

Update, Oct. 14, 2021: On Sept. 9, President Joe Biden directed the Labor Department to develop a temporary emergency rule for businesses with 100 or more employees that would require workers to be fully vaccinated or be tested at least once a week. The White House believes Biden has the authority under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which says the secretary of labor can issue “an emergency temporary standard,” or ETS, if “employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards” and “that such emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger.” For more about the proposal, see “Q&A on Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine-or-Test Rule.” 

Update, April 19, 2022: On Jan. 13, 2022, the Supreme Court blocked the administration’s rule for businesses with 100 or more employees from taking effect while an appeals court considers its legality. In the ruling, the high court rejected the administration’s attempt to use OSHA for the requirement. “Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers,” the court’s opinion reads, “it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly.”
 
The same day, the Supreme Court allowed the administration’s requirement that health care workers at facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding be fully vaccinated, with exemptions for medical and religious reasons. In that opinion, the court agreed that the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services had the authority to issue the requirement. In its ruling, the court said that “healthcare facilities that wish to participate in Medicare and Medicaid have always been obligated to satisfy a host of conditions that address the safe and effective provision of healthcare.”

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Workplace Vaccination Program. 25 Mar 2021, accessed 7 May 2021.

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws.” 16 Dec 2021, accessed 7 May 2021.

Musumeci, MaryBeth  and Jennifer Kates. “Key Questions About COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates.” Kaiser Family Foundation. 7 Apr 2021.

Cole, Jared and Kathleen S. Swendiman. “Mandatory Vaccinations:  Precedent and Current Laws.” Congressional Research Service. 21 May 2014.

Shen, Wen W. “State and Federal Authority to Mandate COVID-19 Vaccination.” Congressional Research Service. 2 Apr 2021.

Noesekabel, Allison and Ada M. Fenick. “Immunization requirements of the top 200 universities: Implications for vaccine-hesitant families.” Vaccine. 35(29):3661-3665. 2017 Jun 22. 

McDonald, Jessica. “Q&A on COVID-19 Vaccines.” FactCheck.org. 20 Dec 2021, updated 13 Apr 2021.

Pfizer Inc. “Pfizer and BioNTech Initiate Rolling Submission of Biologics License Application for U.S. FDA Approval of Their COVID 19 Vaccine.” Press release. 7 May 2021.

Parasidis, Efthimios and Aaron S. Kesselheim. “Assessing The Legality Of Mandates For Vaccines Authorized Via An Emergency Use Authorization.” Health Affairs Blog. 16 Feb 2021.

Reiss, Dorit, I. Glenn Cohen and Carmel Shachar. “‘Authorization’ status is a red herring when it comes to mandating Covid-19 vaccination.” STAT. 5 Apr 2021.

Reiss, Dorit and I. Glenn Cohen. “Can Colleges and Universities Require Student COVID-19 Vaccination?” Harvard Law Review Blog. 15 Mar 2021.

Fernandez Lynch, Holly and Govind Persad. “Yes, it’s legal for businesses and schools to require you to get a coronavirus vaccine.” Washington Post. 4 May 2021.

Husch and Blackwell. 50-state Update on Pending Legislation Pertaining to Employer-mandated Vaccinations. 5 Mar 2021, updated 20 Apr 2021.

Thomason, Andy and Brian O’Leary. “Here’s a List of Colleges That Will Require Students or Employees to Be Vaccinated Against Covid-19.” Chronicle of Higher Education. 7 May 2021, accessed 7 May 2021.

Reeves, Megan. “Can employers require coronavirus vaccines? It’s not clear yet.” Tampa Bay Times. 15 Mar 2021.

Sorkin, Andrew Ross, et al. “Can Companies Require Vaccination, and Should They?” New York Times. 7 May 2021.

Cutter, Chip. “Want That Job Offer? A Covid-19 Vaccine Is Now Required.” Wall Street Journal. 26 Apr 2021.

Karp, Jack. “More Worker Vax Suits May Be Coming, But Are Likely To Fail.” Law360.com. 12 Apr 2021.

Berman, Jillian. “‘If a student chooses to come to an institution, they agree to abide by the rules’: Can colleges force students to get COVID-19 vaccines?” MarketWatch.com. 29 Mar 2021, updated 5 Apr 2021