Universities are beginning to deregister unvaccinated students
30th August 2021 · 0 Comments
By Brier Evans
Contributing Writer
More than 700 colleges and universities in states like California, Alabama, Georgia, Connecticut and even Louisiana, now require COVID-19 vaccinations for students, faculty and staff.
In New Orleans, all private universities in the city have implemented the student mandate, with both Xavier University and Dillard University notifying students in May of the new requirement. However, vaccination rates still remained low at around 40 percent fully vaccinated in Louisiana by the end of the summer, and many students returned to campus still unvaccinated, setting off automatic deregistration from university classes.
“We worked with students to ensure they had access to the documentation required for clearance,” said Patrice Bell, the chief of staff and vice president of administration at Xavier University. Xavier was one of several local universities that deregistered students who had not met this health requirement. Bell added that the university had set an official deadline for student health clearance on July 15 and issued reminders over multiple communication channels beginning in Spring of 2021. The notification was also visible on Xavier’s academic calendar.
“Those who have not been health- or fiscally-cleared will not be able to attend this semester, but we look forward to seeing them in the spring,” Bell said. “These are our standard operating procedures. This is the standard procedure historically followed by Xavier and most other institutions of higher education,” she added.
Local universities began disenrolling students who had not fulfilled the vaccine requirement on Monday, Aug. 23, the first day of classes. Due to the recent surge of COVID-19 cases in Louisiana, and the spread of the Delta variant throughout the country, both Dillard and Xavier had implemented multiple procedures to minimize the number of active cases on campus. Students are required to wear masks in all indoor spaces on campus and are randomly selected for COVID-19 testing every few weeks throughout the academic year.
Dillard had set a deadline of July 15 for students to submit their proof of vaccination. Xavier first notified their student population of its vaccine mandate during the Spring 2021 semester, with the exception of students with religious and medical exemptions. Students were again reminded to meet vaccine requirements by mid-July before their arrival to campus.
“I do not agree with the university’s stance on this matter,” said Jayla Faciane, a junior, biology/pre-medicine major at Xavier. Faciane was dropped from all of her courses on the first day and was only allowed to re-register after going to the hospital and having a medical professional sign off on a medical exemption.
“This is supposed to be a free country, and yet the university is saying we don’t have a choice but to get the vaccine if we want to continue at this university. It’s not fair,” Faciane added.
In addition to Xavier, several other universities have either required immunizations of its campuses or updated its vaccine requirements for the Fall 2021 semester. This includes Loyola University, Tulane University, Dillard University and Nicholls University. Then on Aug. 26, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine received full Food and Drug Administration approval, which prompted more universities across the state like Louisiana State University and University of New Orleans to require full campus vaccination.
While some students opposed their university requirement, there were others who agreed with the decision.
“The mandate protects students who are vaccinated. Although you can still catch COVID while vaccinated, it’s still a safer precaution,” said Ki’Lynn Burden, a first-year pharmacy student at Xavier. “For a fact, they told us ahead of time that we had to be vaccinated in order to come back to school, so I don’t understand why people are making it a bigger issue,” Burden added.
Sabrina Pierre-Paul, a sophomore political science, accelerated pre-law major, also defended the university’s actions.
“It’s not fair for those who are trying to put in the work when it comes to being safe and moving forward,” Pierre-Paul said. “For God’s sake, we don’t even know what’s in the meat, so what are you complaining about what’s in the vaccine,” she added.
Pierre-Paul and Burden said they both received the Pfizer Bio-NTech vaccine. Burden had received it last spring at the Xavier Recreation Center from partnered medical center, Ochsner Health. Last year, Ochsner Health had partnered with Xavier University to create the Ochsner Xavier Center for Health Equity. This partnership allowed Xavier students to have accessibility to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on campus last spring.
“Everything that we use has chemicals,” said Pierre-Paul. “The things we put in our hair – chemicals, the things we put in our body and on our skin – chemicals. So, just get it over with so that we can get back to normal. I’m tired of these masks,” she added.
This article was originally published in the August 30, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
