Ian Patrick, FISM News
George Mason University has granted a professor an exemption to their vaccine mandate after he filed a lawsuit due to his previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and subsequent antibody development.
Professor Todd Zywicki filed a lawsuit with the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) against GMU after the University announced their “reopening policy” which required all staff to be vaccinated to continue working on the premises. The University did allow exemptions for those who could not take the vaccine for health-related or religious reasons as well as for those who work remotely.
As a Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, Zywicki believed that he would be exempt from the policy given that he had contracted the disease and gained antibodies after his infection had passed. His own doctor even advised that getting a vaccine would not be necessary based on his health and immunity status.
The policy from GMU, however, required that those who had previously been infected and developed antibodies get vaccinated as well. In fact, anyone who didn’t provide an exemption for being unvaccinated and did not notify the school of their status could face disciplinary actions including termination. This situation prompted Prof. Zywicki to file a lawsuit claiming that he should be exempt for medical reasons.
In a press release on the matter, NCLA said that they were pleased with the results and with Prof. Zywicki’s willingness to fight what they called “the university’s misguided and scientifically unsound vaccination mandate.” Jenin Younes, the lead counsel in the case against GMU, said that Prof. Zywicki can return to “serving the GMU community.”
NCLA is pleased that GMU granted Professor Zywicki’s medical exemption, which we believe it only did because he filed this lawsuit. According to GMU, with the medical exemption, Prof. Zywicki may continue serving the GMU community, as he has for more than two decades, without receiving a medically unnecessary vaccine and without undue burden. Nevertheless, NCLA remains dismayed by GMU’s refusal—along with many other public and private universities and other employers—to recognize that the science establishes beyond any doubt that natural immunity is as robust or more so than vaccine immunity.
NCLA is pleased to announce today that George Mason University has granted a medical exemption from its mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policy to our client Todd Zywicki, GMU's Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School. https://t.co/Kzfy8ZeQnS
— New Civil Liberties Alliance (@NCLAlegal) August 18, 2021
NCLA also claims that some officials at GMU “have appeared to deny that such a thing as naturally acquired immunity exists,” which the organization says is strange given how the vaccines “are measured against levels of natural immunity acquired by those who have recovered from Covid-19.”
NCLA said that this supposed disparity from the University’s officials have convinced them “to explore litigation against GMU.” The legal organization also called on other Virginia professors at public universities to come forward if they had experienced interactions similar to GMU’s refusal of medical exemption based on naturally acquired immunity.