(CN) — Indiana University’s requirement that all students and staff get the Covid-19 vaccine before coming back to campus this fall survived a U.S. Supreme Court detour Thursday.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett — who has jurisdiction over the Seventh Circuit, which includes Indiana — rejected the emergency petition brought by eight students who argued the university's vaccine mandate violated their right to bodily integrity.
It is the first vaccine mandate case to come before the nation's highest court. Barrett's rejection of the students' petition bodes poorly for other vaccine mandate challenges throughout the country.
The short-lived challenge to Indiana University's vaccine mandate began June 21, when the eight students — one through their father — first filed a lawsuit against it in federal court in Fort Wayne.
"With the ultimate goal of returning our campuses to normal operations, beginning with the fall 2021 semester, all Indiana University (including IUPUI) students, faculty and staff will be required to have a COVID-19 vaccine and be fully vaccinated or have an approved exemption before returning to campus," the university's vaccine policy stated.
The aggrieved students objected to this, claiming in the suit that to be forced to get a Covid-19 vaccine would violate their right to “personal autonomy and bodily integrity.”
To bolster their argument, the students pointed to then-low number of new Covid-19 cases in Indiana; since June 21 that number has risen from about 195 new cases daily to 2,484. They also cited the lower mortality rate for people under 30 years to claim that young college students would not need it.
"The known and unknown risks associated with COVID vaccines, particularly in those under 30, outweigh the risks to that population from the disease itself, by any rational measure," the suit argued.
Though the students found support in many local Republican figures, including Indiana's Attorney General Todd Rokita, the federal court itself didn't find their arguments convincing. It bounced the student's request for injunction against Indiana University on July 19, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed early this month.
"If conditions of higher education may include surrendering property and following instructions about what to read and write, it is hard to see a greater problem with medical conditions that help all students remain safe while learning," U.S. Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote for a three-judge panel. "A university will have trouble operating when each student fears that everyone else may be spreading disease."
On Aug. 6, the right-wing Bopp Law Firm representing the students said it planned to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. They were confident the conservative-stacked high court would overturn the mandate.
"Since 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down many cases which supports Students’ claim that their constitutional rights have been violated by IU’s Mandate, and that IU has the burden to prove its Mandate passes constitutional muster," the firm wrote in an Aug. 6 press release.
They were wrong.
Justice Barrett made the decision to reject the appeal on her own without referring to the full court. As of Thursday evening, Barrett has not offered any comment or written opinion on her ruling. Despite her personal silence on the issue, her decision sets a precedent that will strain right-wing institutional challenges to vaccine and mask mandates.
Later Thursday evening, the full court released a second order related to the pandemic — this time enjoining a provision of New York's eviction moratorium, the CEEFPA, whose full name is Covid Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act.
"If a tenant self-certifies financial hardship, Part A of CEEFPA generally precludes a landlord from contesting
that certification and denies the landlord a hearing," the unsigned order states. "This scheme violates the court’s longstanding teaching that ordinarily 'no man can be a judge in his own case' consistent with the Due Process Clause."
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, noting that "the challenged law will expire in less than three weeks."
"Under these circumstances, such drastic relief would only be appropriate if 'the legal rights at issue [we]re indisputably clear and, even then, sparingly and only in the most critical and exigent circumstances,'" Breyer wrote, joined by his colleagues. "I conclude that this strict standard is not met here."
In addition to the upcoming expiration date, Breyer highlighted New York's distribution of "more than $2 billion in aid
that can be used in part to pay back rent, thereby helping to alleviate the need for evictions."
"Ending CEEFPA’s protections early may lead to unnecessary evictions," he continued. "It is impossible — especially on the abbreviated schedule of an application for an emergency injunction — to know whether more hardship will result from leaving CEEFPA in place or from barring its enforcement."
Breyer also pointed to the “especially broad” latitude New York enjoys “to act in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties.”
"The New York Legislature is responsible for responding to a grave and unpredictable public health crisis. It must combat the spread of a virulent disease, mitigate the financial suffering caused by business closures, and minimize the number of unnecessary evictions," he wrote. "The legislature does not enjoy unlimited discretion in formulating that response, but in this case I would not second-guess politically accountable officials’ determination of how best to 'guard and protect' the people of New York."
The landlord challengers did not ask the justices to consider another law called the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, which bars courts from evicting any tenant found to have "suffered a financial hardship” during a statutorily prescribed period.
Thursday's injunction is also unrelated to a new moratorium imposed last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that applies in most of the country. Unlike New York's moratorium, which the state Legislature enacted into law, the CDC acted on its own before Congress could extend the nationwide eviction moratorium.
Ready to take the reins from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo after his resignation on Aug. 24, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement Thursday that she will work "with the Legislature to quickly address the Supreme Court's decision & strengthen the eviction moratorium legislation."
Hochul also vowed to "help get the funding available to those in need as soon as possible."
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