Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

EDITORIAL:

Nevada can and should protect college campuses from virus outbreaks

First Day of Class at UNLV

Steve Marcus

Students walk southbound in the quad area during the first day of the fall semester at UNLV Monday, August 23, 2010.

Nevada’s universities and colleges should join the growing list of American higher-education institutions that are requiring students to be vaccinated against COVID-19. And while not all of these colleges are extending that requirement to faculty and staff, the Nevada higher-ed system should do that as well.

It’s the right thing to do for campus communities and the populations around them, and it should apply throughout the eight institutions comprising the Nevada System of Higher Education.

NSHE announced Wednesday that it would follow a ruling by the Clark County Commission to require public- and private-sector employees to wear masks in indoor settings regardless of whether they’re vaccinated, meaning faculty and staff at UNLV, the College of Southern Nevada, Nevada State College and the Desert Research Institute will have to mask up until further notice. But amid an alarming outbreak of the delta variant of the coronavirus, which is occurring largely among unvaccinated individuals, NSHE should go beyond masking as tens of thousands of students, professors and support staff members prepare to descend on campuses this fall. Given that young people are among the groups with the lowest vaccination rates, requiring full immunization of campus communities — with exemptions for medical and religious reasons — is an important step to slowing the current outbreak.

Hundreds of universities have already taken that step, including Touro University in Las Vegas. Many of the nation’s most elite colleges are also on that list: Yale, Duke, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford (and the entire University of California system, for that matter), and such major public institutions as the University of Michigan, the University of Washington system and Indiana University.

“Requiring the COVID-19 vaccine among our students, faculty and staff continues to extend the university’s comprehensive and thoughtful approach to managing and mitigating the pandemic on our campuses and brings us one step closer to making a ‘return to normal’ a reality,” IU’s president Michael McRobbie said in announcing the vaccination requirement.

This week, a federal judge upheld IU’s mandate in rejecting arguments from students who claimed it was unconstitutional.

“Recognizing the students’ significant liberty to refuse unwanted medical treatment, the Fourteenth Amendment permits Indiana University to pursue a reasonable and due process of vaccination in the legitimate interest of public health for its students, faculty and staff,” U.S. District Judge Damon Leichty wrote in his opinion. “Today, on this preliminary record, the university has done so for its campus communities. The students haven’t established a likelihood of success on the merits of their Fourteenth Amendment claim or the many requirements that must precede the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction.”

Although the students are appealing the ruling, Leichty’s decision should serve as encouragement for NSHE to issue a vaccination mandate.

It’s legal, it’s medically responsible, and it will help protect public health in communities throughout the state.

Sadly, the breakdown of schools that have mandated vaccinations versus those that haven’t falls largely along red-blue political lines, with colleges in states that tend to vote Republican avoiding immunization requirements.

This is resulting in a growing health risk for many Americans — unvaccinated and vaccinated alike. Look at Kansas and Missouri, both Republican stronghold states whose university systems haven’t gotten on board. There, it was reported this week that intensive care units in Kansas City and elsewhere in Missouri have become swamped with COVID-19 patients and are turning away new patients. The same is true in northern Arkansas, where ICUs have filled up or are filling fast.

Nevada’s higher-ed overseers must not view this situation as a political issue — it’s strictly a matter of public health.

Make the responsible choice, NSHE. Follow the sage leadership we’re seeing at the nation’s elite universities, and require vaccinations on our state’s campuses.