Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has been removed as a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by three medical students that alleges their college’s COVID-19 vaccination policy violates the state and U.S. constitutions.
Landry was listed as a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit filed Aug. 3 against the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) campus in Monroe. But a Western District of Louisiana judge questioned the state’s interest in the litigation, eventually leading Landry to pull out as a plaintiff.
“The state of Louisiana is not a real party in interest to the instant proceeding, as the state has only a general governmental interest in securing compliance with its laws,” the attorney for the students, Michael DuBos, wrote in a response to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s concerns. “However, out of an abundance of caution, the state of Louisiana will be removed as a party in plaintiffs’ restyled complaint. The state will instead seek to file an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs’ … complaint.”
The three students – Rachel Lynn Magliulo, Matthew Shea Willis and Kirsten Willis Hall – contend that VCOM initially had a vaccine policy in place that mandated students get the COVID-19 vaccine, with no avenue for a religious or personal exemption. The college then amended its policy to allow for some “accommodations” after receiving a letter from Landry that sided with the students’ arguments, according to the lawsuit.
“VCOM’s amended policy is nothing more than a charade with the primary intent to refuse to allow students who refuse the vaccine to meaningfully continue their medical education and participate in its curriculum,” the complaint says.
The students objected to taking a vaccine that the lawsuit says was “derived from aborted fetal tissue” based on religious objections, according to the lawsuit.
VCOM’s president and provost, Dixie Tooke-Rawlins, said she was disappointed about the filing of the lawsuit and what she said were inaccuracies in the complaint.
“I was frustrated that the efforts we made to clarify our policy were not heard,” Tooke-Rawlins said in a statement emailed to the Louisiana Record. “It was our intent to be fair to our students and to provide them with an avenue to appeal based on religious, medical or other compelling dissent.”
The college also seemed to indicate that a resolution to the dispute might be in the offing outside of the federal litigation.
“No student has had any actions taken against them to interrupt their education as indicated in the lawsuits,” she said, “and the first student exemption cases were heard by (a college) committee on Aug. 6. Students will be notified soon with results.”
Tooke-Rawlins also noted that medical students’ education involves clinical work in hospitals and nursing homes.
“If an unvaccinated medical student were to infect a patient (who would expect the student to have been vaccinated as a medical provider), who would be liable – the Attorney General’s Office?” she said.