Rutgers’ Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate Survives Scrutiny on Appeal

Rutgers University students failed to revive a lawsuit raising constitutional challenges to a school policy that required students to be vaccinated against Covid-19 before returning to campus in 2021.

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Thursday affirmed a lower court’s September 2022 dismissal of the complaint, saying that the students didn’t have a fundamental constitutional right to be free from mandatory vaccinations and that Rutgers had a rational basis for adopting its vaccine policy.

The university’s decision to phase in its policy by delaying the vaccine mandate for its staff didn’t violate the students’ equal protection ...