NJ University Requires All Employees To Be Vaccinated Or Face Termination

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Rutgers University is now telling all of its employees, from tenured professors to dining hall workers, that they must be fully vaccinated against coronavirus by Dec. 8 or risk being fired from their jobs.

Rutgers said it wants to be in compliance with President Joe Biden's mandate, issued Sept. 9, that federal contractors be vaccinated against COVID-19. Rutgers said it considers all of its employees fall into this category, as Rutgers receives federal grants and funds.

"President Biden’s executive order supersedes other state or local rules, regulations, laws or executive orders. It does not allow for a regular testing option for those employees who choose not to be vaccinated," announced Rutgers Chief Operating Officer Antonio Calcado.

While Rutgers will consider requests for medical/religious exemptions,"providing proof of full vaccination by December 8 is not optional," Calcado continued. "Failure to provide proof of full vaccination or receive a University-approved exemption by December 8 will result in disciplinary action up to and including termination."

Calcado himself actually contracted coronavirus in February of 2020, and he had to be hospitalized. In this TAP Into article, he relayed how he was so sick he thought he was going to die.

Last March, Rutgers made history when it became the first college or university in the nation to require all of its students get a coronavirus vaccine. At the time, professors and staff were exempt from the mandate; they were only "strongly encouraged" to get the vaccine.

In August, four Rutgers science professors started this petition that said teachers and staff should be included in the vaccine mandate as well. More than 800 people signed it. The Rutgers faculty union also said it would support a vaccine requirement for professors.

"It was only universal vaccination that got rid of polio, smallpox, etc., and I believe only universal vaccination will get rid of COVID," said Troy Shinbrot, a biomedical engineering professor who wrote the petition, and is also a member of the Rutgers faculty union. "It is bizarre to imagine that requiring vaccinations of one group (students), but not others (e.g. faculty), will make Rutgers safe."

However, Rutgers administration still declined to include staff in the mandate, maintaining that 97 percent of professors were already vaccinated.

Monday's announcement is the first time all Rutgers employees were told they must get the shot.

RWJBarnabas Health, which staffs Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers University, already requires all of its employees to be vaccinated. In fact, RWJ Barnabas confirmed last week it fired 124 employees across its hospital network statewide who refused the vaccine.

In total, Rutgers employs 25,600 people, from professors, administrators and graduate students to athletic coaches, building, maintenance workers and food service employees across all three of its campuses: New Brunswick, Newark and Camden.

As of mid August, 97 percent of Rutgers professors had been vaccinated. But vaccine rates among the rest of the staff were much lower, not even 80 percent.

But by late October, that number had climbed and now more than 90 percent of all Rutgers staff have gotten the shot, the school said.

Rutgers is requiring employees upload their vaccine card.

"If you are one of the few remaining Rutgers employees who has not yet uploaded proof of vaccination, please take a few minutes and upload your documentation to https://rtr.ipo.rutgers.edu/vaccines," wrote Calcado.

Also on Monday, Rutgers gave its employees this deadline to upload their vaccine cards to the university portal:

• Those choosing to have the Moderna vaccine must get their first dose by October 27, 2021
• Those choosing to have the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine must get the first dose by November 3, 2021
• Those choosing to have the single-shot Johnson & Johnson must get their shot by November 24, 2021

Related: Rutgers Professors: We Should Be Included In Vaccine Mandate (Aug. 2021)

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