Rutgers Sued By Students, Anti-Vax Group For Vaccine Mandate

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — 18 students filed a federal lawsuit against Rutgers University on Monday, arguing that the school's coronavirus vaccine requirement is unconstitutional and violates their right to medical privacy.

The students were joined in the suit by Children’s Health Defense, a non-profit led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The group has been known for questioning vaccine safety and fighting vaccine mandates long before coronavirus emerged.

“This mandate undermines our Constitution and Bill of Rights by denying students the freedom to make their own medical decisions,” said Children's Health Defense President Mary Holland. “No one should be forced or coerced into accepting any medical procedure against their wishes. When the low risk to young adults from COVID and the known and unknown risks from the vaccines are taken into account, Rutgers’ actions recklessly endanger its students.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey; Julio Gomez, a Scotch Plains lawyer, is the attorney representing the 18 students and Children's Health Defense.

Five of the 18 Rutgers students were named: Peter Cordi, Raelynne Miller, Kayla Matteo, Adriana Pinto and Jake Bothe; the others were identified as "Jane/John Doe 1-13." Some of the students recently accepted offers of admission whereas others are getting ready to begin their senior year.

In response to the lawsuit, Rutgers spokeswoman Dory Devlin said the school's position on vaccines “is consistent with the legal authority supporting this policy.”

Those who choose to fight Rutgers' vaccine mandate have faced an uphill battle: In March, Monmouth County Republican lawmaker Serena DiMaso introduced a bill that sought to strip state funding from Rutgers for requiring students get the vaccine. However, her bill failed to get any backers and never advanced in Trenton.

Rutgers was the first college in America to mandate the vaccine in March. Since then, hundreds of schools have followed suit, including Princeton, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan.

Last week, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett allowed Indiana University to proceed in mandating all students and professors be vaccinated. Similar to the Rutgers lawsuit, a group of students sued Indiana University over the mandate, but Justice Barrett declined their plea. She did this without even asking the college to present arguments or presenting the case to the entire court.

Classes at Rutgers start Sept. 1, and school president Holloway said in this Aug. 11 update he was "happy" to report that more than 95 percent of students have presented proof of vaccination.

Also, last week he extended the vaccine requirement to include any Rutgers employee who works in healthcare or public safety, such as Rutgers campus police. Professors are still not required to be vaccinated, although the Rutgers faculty union said it would support forced vaccinations for faculty and staff.

The students make seven arguments

In the lawsuit, the students make seven arguments against Rutgers University. They are:

1. Requiring students take the vaccine violates their right to informed consent and the right to refuse unwanted medical treatments as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

2. The students argue Rutgers is forcing them to make a difficult choice: "Take an experimental vaccine and risk injury and death — or abandon academic studies at Rutgers," the lawsuit reads. "At stake are scholarships, enrollments in the Honors Program, athletics and forfeits of years of study, time and money invested towards a degree that could be lost or deferred indefinitely if students are forced to leave Rutgers to start over at another, possibly out-of-state college."

Since April 2021, there have been more than a thousand cases of heart inflammation reported after getting the vaccines, mostly in teenage boys and young adults 16 and older, said the Centers for Disease Control. However, the CDC has said these reports "are rare, given the hundreds of millions of vaccine doses administered" and that most patients who reported the chest pain recovered quickly. The CDC said this is something they are monitoring.

3. The students also argue that the vaccine mandate is a breach of contract because Rutgers administrators said on Jan. 8 that vaccines would not be required in order to attend school this fall. In a videotaped discussion, Rutgers senior vice chancellor for health affairs Dr. Vicente Gracias said the following:

"It is America and Rutgers is part of America. The vaccine at this point is not mandatory across the United States or here in New Jersey. And certainly at Rutgers, with our stance on human liberties and history of protecting that, the vaccine is not mandatory."

Instead, he said he hopes the Rutgers community chooses to vaccinates itself.

However, a Rutgers spokeswoman said the university changed its position when it announced March 25 that all students had to get the shot to return to class.

"Just two months later, Rutgers flip-flopped," said Children's Health Defense.

4. The students say because Rutgers is working with the vaccine manufacturers — Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — in ongoing clinical trials, Rutgers will benefit financially if more people are required to take the shots.

As Patch has reported, Rutgers has been a clinical trial site for all three vaccines, and currently is a clinical trial site for Pfizer's vaccine for children 12 and under. Rutgers students were even asked to participate in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine trial last year.

5. The students argue it is not fair that Rutgers is only requiring students, and not professors, be vaccinated. Colleges like Princeton and NJIT are requiring both students and teachers get the shot.

However, just this week hundreds of Rutgers professors signed this petition sent to the administration, asking that professors be included in the vaccine mandate. Additionally, the Rutgers teachers' union, which represents 8,600 professors and grad students, said on May 19 they support professors being required to get the vaccine.

One of those professors is Troy Shinbrot, who teaches biomedical engineering at Rutgers. He said Monday's lawsuit was news to him, and that he disagreed with it.

"If RU doesn’t have the right to require COVID vaccinations, then polio, mumps, measles, rubella and smallpox vaccines wouldn’t be required either," he said. "What logic makes people want to give freedom to let diseases run wild escapes me."

6. The lawsuit argues the vaccine mandate violates federal and state law as neither has enacted legislation requiring COVID vaccines for citizens.

7. The lawsuit also argues vaccine manufacturers should not be shielded from liability for deaths or injuries their vaccines may cause.

"Manufacturers are especially driven to bring risky products to market now because they bear virtually zero liability for any injury their products may cause," read the lawsuit.

In March, Kennedy sent this letter Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway, asking him to drop the mandate. Holloway never responded.

Rutgers has long required any student who lives in dorms to show proof of typical childhood vaccinations, such as MMR, TB and hepatitis B. Rutgers also requires the meningitis vaccine for all students younger than 19, regardless whether they live on or off campus, and it is required for first-year college students living on campus. After that, students are not required to get it.

Rutgers does not require all students get a flu shot. The list of vaccines that Rutgers currently requires of its students can be found here.

"We are committed to creating a safe campus environment in fall 2021, and to support the health and safety for all members of the Rutgers community, the university updated its existing immunization requirements for students to include the COVID-19 vaccine," said spokeswoman Devlin.

Related: Rutgers Professors: We Should Be Included In Vaccine Mandate (Aug. 17)

Hundreds Turn Up To Protest Rutgers' Vaccine Mandate For Students (May 21)

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