UC and CSU campuses could require COVID-19 vaccinations as soon as the fall semester

California State University and the University of California announced Thursday that the COVID-19 vaccine will be required for anyone who returns to campus as soon as the shots are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The requirement will affect 33 campuses across the state.

Both the CSU and UC already have several immunization requirements, but university leaders said they could not implement a policy on COVID-19 vaccinates until it received FDA approval. Currently, the FDA only issued emergency-use authorization for the COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

The plan would go into effect as early as the fall 2021 semester for the CSU, according to officials from the 23-campus system.

The vaccine requirement will allow students and employees to request an exemption for religious or medical reasons, according to a statement from CSU.

“Together, the CSU and UC enroll and employ more than one million students and employees across 33 major university campuses, so this is the most comprehensive and consequential university plan for COVID-19 vaccines in the country,” CSU Chancellor Joseph I. Castro said. “Consistent with previous CSU announcements related to the university’s response to the pandemic, we are sharing this information now to give students, their families and our employees ample time to make plans to be vaccinated prior to the start of the fall term.”

The mandates would be legal — but only if at least one COVID-19 vaccine becomes fully approved by the FDA, said Dorit Reiss, a health law expert at the UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.

Reiss noted that the vaccines currently being used have only the FDA’s emergency-use authorization.

“There’s legal uncertainty over whether you can require a vaccine that’s under EUA,” Reiss said.

By announcing that they’re waiting for formal FDA approval, the university systems are avoiding that gray area, she said.

Reiss said courts have upheld California universities’ right to mandate vaccines since 1925, when the courts dismissed a lawsuit by an incoming student challenging the UC system’s demand for a smallpox vaccine.

Last fall, a group of UC faculty and students led by Cindy Kiel, a former UC Davis associate vice chancellor, sued to block a flu vaccine order. The group said the mandate violated their constitutional rights and introduced medical testimony that the shots were unsafe. The challenge failed, Reiss said.

“Universities have been mandating vaccines for a long time,” she said.

Kiel said she quit her job at UC Davis “because of the shot mandate. I’m glad I left them so I don’t have to face a COVID (vaccine) mandate.

“I refused to work for an employer who would mandate a medical procedure,” Kiel added. She said many faculty and staff members told her they supported her view and thanked her for pressing the lawsuit.

“There’s a very large, silent group out there” opposed to vaccines, Kiel said. She said she’s found a job at another university, which she declined to identify.

Several other colleges across the county have begun to announce the same requirement for fall, including several in California.

Both the UC and CSU system announced the majority of instruction in the fall will be in-person, depending on infection rates and vaccination rates at the time.

“Receiving a vaccine for the virus that causes COVID-19 is a key step people can take to protect themselves, their friends and family, and our campus communities while helping bring the pandemic to an end,” UC President Michael V. Drake said.

The Fresno Bee’s Ashleigh Panoo contributed to this story.