Law Professor Refuses COVID-19 Vaccine, Sues University for Making It Mandatory

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George Mason COVID-19 Vaccine Lawsuit Overview:

• Who: Todd Zywicki is suing Virginia’s George Mason University, where he works as a law professor.
• Why: Zywicki alleges his constitutional rights are being violated by a university policy requiring all unvaccinated faculty and staff to wear masks on campus, practice social distancing and undergo COVID-19 testing.
• Where: George Mason University is located in Fairfax, Virginia.

An unvaccinated law professor is suing the university where he works for creating a policy that he says pushes employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine, or else face discipline or termination.

Plaintiff Todd Zywicki — a 55-year-old professor of law at Virginia’s George Mason University — filed the complaint last Tuesday in a Virgina federal court, alleging his constitutional rights were being violated. 

Zywicki works at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason. He alleges that, on June 28 this year, the university announced a reopening policy related to COVID-19 for the Fall 2021 semester. 

The policy requires all unvaccinated faculty and staff members to wear masks on campus, physically distance, and undergo frequent COVID-19 testing, he says. 

He says the university also emailed students and employees about the policy and threatened disciplinary action—including termination of employment—against those who did not comply. 

However, Zywicki says he has already contracted and fully recovered from COVID-19, so has a “robust natural immunity,” as confirmed by his personal immunologist. 

“Yet, if Professor Zywicki follows his doctor’s advice and elects not to take the vaccine, that will diminish his efficacy in performing his professional responsibilities by hamstringing him in various ways, such as requiring him to wear a mask that has no public health value given his naturally acquired immunity,” the complaint reads. 

“He will also face adverse disciplinary consequences. In short, the Policy is unmistakably coercive and cannot reasonably be considered anything other than an unlawful mandate.” 

The complaint adds that the policy represents an unconstitutional condition being applied to Professor Zywicki’s constitutional rights to bodily integrity and informed medical choice.

It says the university is overriding Professor Zywicki’s personal autonomy and constitutional rights by forcing him “to either be vaccinated or to suffer adverse professional consequences,” such as having to wear a mask. 

Zywicki alleges his rights under the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the constitution are being violated with the policy, including his right to refuse unwanted and medically unnecessary medical care. 

“Coercing employees to receive a… vaccine for a virus that presents a near-zero risk of illness or death to them and which they are exceedingly unlikely to pass on to others, because those employees already possess natural immunity to the virus, violates the liberty and privacy interests that the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments protect,” he says.

The professor is seeking injunctive relief blocking the university from forcing employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine, plus a jury trial.

Do you think the professor should be allowed to be unvaccinated and unmasked on campus? Let us know in the comments! 

The plaintiff is represented by Matthew D. Hardin of Hardin Law Office and Jenin Younes of the New Civil Liberties Alliance. 

The George Mason COVID-19 Vaccine Lawsuit is Zywicki v. Gregory Washington et al., Case No. 1:21-cv-00894-TSE-MSN, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

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