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Public colleges in Virginia have begun to lift their COVID-19 vaccination requirement for students after the new Republican attorney general, Jason Miyares, issued an advisory opinion Friday concluding that the state’s public universities cannot require vaccination against COVID-19 as a condition for enrollment or attendance. The advisory opinion reverses one issued by Miyares’s Democratic predecessor last year.
Virginia Tech and George Mason University both said they would no longer require students to be vaccinated in light of the attorney general’s opinion, but they would continue to encourage it. Virginia Tech reports a 95 percent vaccination rate for students, and George Mason University reports a universitywide vaccination rate of nearly 93 percent.
University of Virginia president Jim Ryan said in a message Monday about the attorney general’s opinion that “the issue is moot for us at UVA, at least for the time being.”
“Our deadline for the vaccine/booster mandate has passed, and we are grateful to report that over 99 percent of students have complied with our vaccine and booster requirements,” Ryan wrote. “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.”
“As for the need for any additional rounds of vaccines or boosters, our hope is that this will not be necessary for the foreseeable future as the virus continues to evolve and more and more people develop immunity,” Ryan wrote. “But we cannot predict the future.”
The Washington Post previously reported that at least seven Virginia public universities, including UVA, Virginia Tech and George Mason, lifted COVID-19 vaccination mandates for employees in response to a Jan. 15 directive from the new Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin.
