Students sue OU over COVID-19 vaccine mandate

OU students, employee sue university over COVID-19 mandates

RYAN MAXIN NEWS EDITOR

A group composed of 15 Ohio University students and one employee is suing the university in an effort to stop its COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

The civil suit, fled Dec. 7, 2021, in the Athens County Court of Common Pleas, argues — among other things — OU’s vaccine mandate violates the Ohio Constitution by infringing on people’s rights to turn down medical treatment.

On Aug. 31, 2021, OU President Hugh Sherman announced all students, faculty and staff were required to receive full doses of one of the three main COVID-19 vaccines — Pfzer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — by Nov. 15, 2021. Although OU provided students, faculty and staff the opportunity to apply for and receive exemptions to the mandate, those who did not receive a vaccine or were not approved for an exemption were not allowed to come to campus for Spring Semester.

Warner Mendenhall, managing attorney at the Mendenhall Law Group, the frm representing the OU students and the employee, said the university’s mandate is discriminatory to the unvaccinated and compared requiring the vaccine to experimentation.

“We learned in World War II that it was immoral to experiment on human beings without their consent, informed consent,” Mendenhall said. “Everyone has a right to refuse to take anything that’s experimental, and they should not have any consequences in their job or their education or their life on that.”

Though the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines have only received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, the Pfzer vaccine received full approval from the FDA for those 16 years of age and older in August 2021. Following that approval, the FDA announced the Pfzer vaccine would be marketed under the name Comirnaty.

Despite the FDA’s announcement, the lawsuit alleged the Comirnaty vaccine is not currently available.

Tyce Patt, a junior studying marketing at OU and one of the students involved in the lawsuit, said the basis of the lawsuit is the university’s mandate requires students to act in certain ways.

“Wearing masks in class might not be that bad, and taking a test every week might not be that bad, and then getting the vaccine might not be that bad, and

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for most people, it’s not. What the problem boils back down to is requiring those things is illegal,” Patt said. “We do think that it would be important to set that precedent for other schools in the state and even across the country.”

Patt is also the creator of an August 2021 petition that garnered mixed reactions from university student groups and offcials. He initially started looking into ways to take legal action against the university after several attempts of airing his grievances led to no action from university offcials.

As a former member of OU Student Senate, Patt said he tried to express his concerns with the mandates and emailed university administrators over the course of several months. Change.org eventually took down his petition due to a rule violation, he said.

In response to the lawsuit, Carly Leatherwood, a university spokesperson, said OU is confdent its actions trying to mitigate coronavirus exposure and spread are “necessary, scientifcally supported, and legally valid.” Though she offered no further comment, she said the university is prepared to argue the matter in court.

In the lawsuit, Mendenhall is asking the judge for a preliminary injunction, which would temporarily discontinue the mandate while the rest of the legal details surrounding the case are decided. To receive the injunction, the plaintiffs must prove they have a “likelihood of success on the merits,” Mendenhall said, which he, Patt and the other plaintiffs believe they have.

“I think we’re going to 100% win the lawsuit,” Patt said. “We’re really serious about this, to the point where we’re willing to go outside of the lawsuit even and advocate for change at other universities.”

@RYANMAXIN

RM554219@OHIO.EDU

Athens Middle School at 51-55 W. State St. in Athens, Ohio, is subject to new guidelines made by the Athens County School District. (NATE SWANSON | DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)

Athens City School District updates COVID-19 policies in new year

PAIGE FISHER FOR THE POST

The Athens City School District, or ACSD, has made updates to its spring COVID-19 policies to stay in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

Thomas Gibbs, ACSD’s superintendent, said the policy changes mostly affect quarantine and isolation protocols, though rules surrounding masking have also become more strict. The CDC recently changed the national recommended isolation and quarantine period from 10 days to fve days for those who are not up to date on vaccinations and were exposed to COVID-19.

Although ages 5 to 11 were made eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine in October, that has had very little impact on the district’s policies.

Currently, in Athens County, there are 766 vaccinated children ages 5 to 11, James Gaskell, health commissioner at the Athens City-County Health Department, said.

The number of cases in the district’s elementary schools tend to be the lowest of all the schools in the district.

As of Monday, there were four active cases and 30 recovered cases of COVID-19 among students at East Elementary School, according to ACSD’s COVID-19 dashboard. Those case numbers are much lower than the number of infections at Athens High School.

One possible reason for the disparity of cases between the two schools is that those in the 5-to-11-year age range are not as likely to contract the virus as those in the higher age groups, Gaskell said. Children in the 5-to-11 age range aren’t as inclined as older students to be in locations where they can get infected, like at parties or restaurants, he said.

Athens High School student cases are the highest in the district with 10 active and 74 recovering cases among students.

“We are experiencing a large amount of COVID cases that we have to do the full case investigation for,” Heidi Shaw, ACSD nurse, said in an email.

Although parents within the ACSD are not required to notify the school of their child’s vaccination status, they may self-report if their child is vaccinated to help the school know what actions their child should take if they are exposed to the virus.

The district’s change to stricter COVID-19 policies also takes effect outside of the classroom, including at sporting events.

The school’s previous policy for athletic events was that if the crowd was below 50% capacity, fans were allowed to take masks off while seated, Gibbs said. Now, masks are required at all times, regardless of capacity.

Some of the guidelines students must follow if they are exposed in school include a requirement to wear a mask, monitor symptoms, isolate and get tested for all students, grades K–12, regardless of vaccination status.

Students are expected to carry out those requirements for 10 days after being exposed to the virus. However, testing on day fve after exposure is recommended if the student is able.

As the 2022 academic year gets off to a start, the school district’s main agenda for the year is to stay within the CDC guidelines and ensure the safety of all students.

@PAIGEMAFISHER

PF585820@OHIO.EDU

Q&A Gillian Ice explains university COVID-19 operations, what students should expect this semester

SOPHIA YOUNG

STAFF WRITER

Gillian Ice, special assistant to the president for public health operations, has been helping Ohio University address the COVID-19 pandemic head-on since her appointment in August 2020.

Ice’s work includes overseeing case management, coordinating the university’s COVID-19 response and communicating with the OU and Athens community about the status of infections and health initiatives.

The Post sat down with Ice to discuss the university’s plan for mitigating COVID-19 infections this spring and recommendations for students as they navigate the ongoing pandemic on campus.

THE POST: What has the university maintained in its COVID-19 operations this semester and is there anything new being implemented?

ICE: The same measures that we used for delta, alpha, beta, the original strain, work against omicron when applied consistently. We’ve always taken a multi-layered approach … We continue to do the testing, which is really important, so we can rapidly isolate and quarantine people. We did increase … and slightly modify our mask requirement. We know that because omicron is so transmissible, the higher quality the mask, the more likely it is to prevent transmission. We continue to do contact tracing, rapid isolation and quarantine. We’re trying to emphasize distancing where possible, avoiding large crowds, that kind of thing. So, it’s the same measures … but we’re trying to tweak so that we can really double down on those same prevention measures, for sure.

TP: How do you feel in terms of preparation and expectations for this coming semester?

ICE: That’s a tough one to answer, actually. I mean, in some ways, I’ve been at this now for, I don’t know, 16 months or so. So, at least I have the experience to lean on. And we’ve learned from previous surges what works (and) what doesn’t. And not only I, but my whole leadership team and our contact tracers — we know a lot more – so I feel a little bit more comfortable going into it. The cases right now, we are already having a very large infux of cases. The large majority of them haven’t left home yet and they’re reporting their positive tests, which is great, so that we make sure that they come back when they’re supposed to and not sooner. In relative to (the) fall, that’s a much higher number of people, as we anticipated. But it’s a little overwhelming to just look at the sheer volume of people who are affected by COVID right now.

TP: Have staffng levels increased at all, especially with the expectation of more contact tracing this semester?

ICE: We are down some staff, just because people left for permanent jobs. So, what we’ve done is we have … our “strike team.” These are teams that come in, particularly around surge capacity, and we’ve asked them to expand to increase their hours … We’re reaching out to units on campus that have staff that maybe are willing to work some extra hours to help us out … and we’re also hiring some additional part-time folks to do that. We’ve also taken some steps to process cases – what we call “surge processing,” – so we can move a little bit more quickly. So, as soon as somebody submits an incident report or are aware that they’re affected by COVID, we send them a letter and … with immediate instructions and with the knowledge that there might be a delay before we can reach out to them. But at least it gives them immediate instructions. So, a bunch of internal staffng reallocations, and so forth, so that we can work as effciently as possible.

TP: Has the university had any plans or expectations for more in-person events this spring?

ICE: The plan is to continue the events that we had planned already, with a constant eye on the situation and looking to, wherever we can, to change those events so that they’re a little bit safer … I’ve really encouraged, particularly Housing and Residence Life … to really think about what kinds of ... outdoor things can we have people do because those are safer, and I’m hoping they pick up the challenge. It is cold, but there’s some amazing hiking around Athens County, right. There’s some great things that you can do outside, that if you can layer up appropriately, are safer. And so, we’ll be trying to emphasize that kind of thing as well.

TP: What is testing availability looking like for this semester?

ICE: Because we anticipate a lot of spread on campus … we’re actually amping up our testing, at least for the month of January … What we’ve learned from the past surges that we’ve had over the last 16 months or so, is that they tend to last between four and six weeks with major transmission, and then it drops off to a point … We don’t know how omicron is gonna land and we also have delta still circulating, so we don’t know if that time frame will hold. But we expect it to. So, the frst four to six weeks, we’re going to be increasing testing availability.

TP: The university said it was changing masking requirements for the Spring Semester. Do three-fold surgical masks qualify as a high fltration?

ICE: I don’t think it’s technically considered a high fltration, but it is allowable. We would love for people to do the KN95 … Those are all the high fltration masks. But surgical masks are fne. Just be really careful to make sure that they’re tight ftting … We discourage people from using homemade masks, although you could do a surgical mask and a homemade mask together. That actually improves the ft of the surgical mask if you put the mask on top … We want students to stay in class. We want them to have their college experience, and the more we do to protect each other, the better everyone is to be able to stay safe and in college, in the classroom, the whole time.

@SOPHIELISEY

SY951319@OHIO.EDU