Three students have won a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking a Monroe medical school from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccination policy, even though the college granted them religious exemptions from the policy.
Federal Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana ruled Aug. 17 that the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) would be enjoined from mandating that students Rachel Lynn Magliulo, Matthew Shea Willis and Kirsten Willis Hall get the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of enrollment.
On Wednesday, the plaintiffs filed a motion for contempt and accused VCOM of violating the restraining order because its associate dean of student affairs and development had sent a mass email “attacking” the plaintiffs.
In a statement emailed to the Louisiana Record, VCOM pledged that it would abide by the TRO until a hearing on Nov. 2.
“VCOM has not and will not retaliate against the VCOM students,” the statement says. “The allegations raised in this most recent filing lack merit. VCOM granted the student waivers to the vaccine on 8/6/2021.”
In his legal opinion, Doughty mentions House Resolution 20, which notes that the COVID-19 vaccines had been approved for emergency use only and that students and others have the right to refuse the vaccine based on health, religious belief or personal conviction.
It remains unclear how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s formal approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine this week would affect the litigation.
The plaintiffs on Aug. 9 received an email from the university saying that the students’ religious exemption was time-limited until at least one of the vaccines received FDA approval, according to Doughty’s opinion. Students were also required to defer educational instruction requiring them to work in clinical settings, the opinion said, and to wear masks at all times while on campus, except while eating or drinking.
Plaintiffs demonstrated “irreparable harm” in their arguments, according to Doughty.
“VCOM placed a ‘Scarlet Letter’ type list of requirements on the ‘unvaccinated,’ which will preclude the plaintiffs from completing required components of their required curriculum,” he said. “Also, the plaintiffs would be required to disclose their ‘unvaccinated’ status to other students in order to obtain the other students’ consent to work with the ‘unvaccinated.’”
VCOM expressed concern about how the continuing litigation was affecting the private medical school’s student body.
“VCOM is more concerned that the continued court filings, all of which identify these students by name and are then provided to the media by their legal counsel, continuously separate these students from their classmates,” the college said in its statement.