Stanislaus State among California colleges to require COVID-19 vaccinations this fall

California State University and the University of California announced Thursday that the COVID-19 vaccine will be required of anyone on campus as soon as the shots are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Ellen Junn, president of CSU Stanislaus in Turlock, Tweeted about the requirement, which would go into effect as early as the fall 2021 semester for the CSU, according to officials from the 23-campus system.

Faculty, staff, and students who are accessing campus facilities will be required to be immunized “upon full approval of one or more vaccines by the (FDA), as well as adequate availability of the fully approved vaccines.”

“Together, the CSU and UC enroll and employ more than one million students and employees across 33 major university campuses, so this is the most comprehensive and consequential university plan for COVID-19 vaccines in the country,” said CSU Chancellor Joseph I. Castro.

Students or employees can seek an exemption on medical or religious grounds, officials said.

Both the UC and CSU already have several immunization requirements, but university leaders had previously said they could not require vaccines that hadn’t received FDA approval. The FDA has only issued emergency use authorization for the COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

The mandates would be legal — but only if at least one COVID-19 vaccine becomes fully approved by the FDA, said Dorit Reiss, a health law expert at the UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.

Reiss noted that the vaccines currently being used have only the FDA’s emergency-use authorization.

“There’s legal uncertainty over whether you can require a vaccine that’s under EUA,” Reiss said.

By announcing that they’re waiting for formal FDA approval, the university systems are avoiding that gray area, she said.

Other colleges in the county have begun to announce the same requirement for fall, including several in California.

Stanislaus State is hosting a forum Friday afternoon for students to discuss plans for fall “repopulation”. The meeting is accessible by Zoom from the university website.

The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.

This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 7:02 AM.