LSU will not enter the fall semester with a vaccine mandate for in-person attendance, much to the chagrin of the LSU Faculty Senate. The school announced instead it will require unvaccinated students to take monthly COVID tests and mask up while indoors on campus and within 50 feet of building entrances.
The Faculty Senate requested LSU seek Department of Health authorization to require students be vaccinated to sit in class before the fall semester begins, but school officials maintained their previous position that a mandate would not be legal.
Other universities in the state such as Tulane and Dillard have sought and received LDH authorization for a mandate, but LSU Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert Dampf argued those are private institutions and LSU is a public entity.
“The rules that apply to Tulane, and vice versa, don’t apply to LSU and vice versa, it’s a different set of rules, we are governed by state statute so our hands are tied,” Dampf told Talk Louisiana host Jim Engster Thursday morning.
Dampf said the law says the vaccine is still technically considered experimental at this stage in its development because it is still under emergency use authorization.
“It cannot, legally, go on the LDH approved list because it is experimental, therefore it is not on the list with Rubella, Measles, with Polio,” said Dampf. “It is not on the list, therefore we cannot mandate it.”
The FDA is expected to give the Pfizer vaccine full approval sometime early next month.
Furthermore, Dampf contends that even once the vaccine is given full FDA approval there’s still a loophole that could be exploited.
“Mandate doesn’t really mean mandate. All you really have to do is sign a statement saying you oppose it for religious or moral reasons,” said Dampf. “Now that’s not an LSU issue, that’s a legislative issue.”
A coalition of LSU faculty have requested the right to teach remotely in the fall as a result of the decision.
Dampf said if he had unilateral authority he would institute a campus vaccine mandate, but the best they can do is to encourage vaccination.
“Part of our motivation to have the testing is we hope it is annoying to students and they will just go get the vaccine,” said Dampf.
Many faculty members have been fiercely critical of the refusal to adopt a mandate and only require monthly testing. Communications Professor Robert Mann called it “a plan designed to miss COVID outbreaks”. English Professor Kevin Cope said the monthly testing policy has a “big enough hole to drive through a Mack Truck” given the five to fourteen day incubation period.
“You might as well have no testing at all,” said Cope. “That having been said I’m not saying there should be no testing but this is a serious problem”
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