TAIWANJULI (@TAIWANJULI)

Surprise! Colleges accused of blindsiding students with COVID vax mandates for clinical rotations New Jersey is a hotbed of surreptitious mandates for nursing students, according to anti-mandate nursing group lawyer. Students write Great Barrington Declaration successor for their generation. By Greg Piper Like the cassette music format among hipsters, COVID-19 vaccine mandates live on in select educational settings. Students may not be told until they're already well into a program, however. Anti-mandate groups, lawyers and parents are claiming that students in healthcare programs whose vaccine status didn't prove a problem are being given the ultimatum to either get jabbed or face removal once they reach clinical rotations, though it's not clear how many of the directives are in writing. Informed Nurses NJ said it knows of "hundreds" of unvaccinated students removed from New Jersey institutions upon clinical rotations. Attorney John Coyle shared his lawsuits filed this year on behalf of students against Rowan College at Burlington County, Ramapo College and Hackensack Meridian Health, which operates JFK University Medical Center Muhlenberg. While "almost every" nursing program in New Jersey refuses to grant vaccine exemptions, "some of them back down when [students] hire a lawyer," Coyle told Just the News. He singled out Rowan as a serial violator for "making up requirements" for its clinical partners that they have denied when students ask New Jersey's Rutgers is one of the highest profile universities nationwide still mandating vaccination for all students, and clinical students must go even further: primary series, booster and "updated (bivalent)" dose. Lawyer Dana Wefer told Just the News she also fought a requirement at Ramapo, going so far as obtaining "contracts between university and hospital" via open records request "to prove they could accommodate my client." The group No College Mandates said it has heard from students in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin but told Just the News it's rare to get a directive in writing or sometimes even the name of the school. "Students reach out me, then get scared and go dark," cofounder Lucia Sinatra said. She also said an "anonymous nurse administrator" reached out to say York College students can get exemptions for their clinical rotations with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Wellspan, but it is "not easy getting this info in writing." Sinatra scrounged up one from North Carolina's Central Piedmont Community College. Dental Hygiene Program Director Brenda Sanner told an unidentified student that COVID and flu vaccination were required for rotation sites and there were "no exemptions at this time." Sanner didn't respond to queries about how this was disclosed prior to enrollment Sinatra said she's seeking volunteers to compile "a list of colleges and clinical sites that will accept exemptions or that don’t mandate." Retired physician Lynda Prince said her daughter was "one year into her nursing school degree" when Florida International University told the student she must get jabbed. "The way they did it was particularly diabolical," giving her daughter a religious exemption so she'd pay a full year of tuition, Prince wrote on X. This led her "to believe they could place her once clinical rotations started in year 2." FIU then denied her exemption "the week before she was to start clinical/hospital work," leaving the 32-year-old student the choice of forfeiting her first year or acquiescing, Prince said. "FIU did not (and does not) require the COVID vaccine," FIU spokesperson Maydel Santana wrote in an email when shown Prince's claims. "Many of the hospitals do require the vaccine." Concordia University Texas's nursing program does not mention COVID vaccines in its "immunization records" requirements, but rather a catchall FAQ section at the bottom of its compliance page. "Clinical partners now require all students to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19" and may add boosters at any time, it states. "Please ensure your proof of vaccination (both doses, with proper documentation) are in Clinical Student by your upload deadline." Students not currently subject to mandates are trying to preempt their return through a new "Student Declaration" modeled on the anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration, released three years earlier, that focuses on the psychological and medical toll of mandates. Signatories will not "mask, vaccinate, or stay home without the right to choose, meaning not only the right to accept or refuse but the right to fully informed consent without coercion," it states. "We must heal and restore our generation and those generations who follow ours." No College Mandates, which closely tracks campus vaccine policies and claims about 75 schools still have mandates, publicized the declaration Oct. 18 and said it helped Palmer connect with other students https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/surprise-colleges-accused-blindsiding-students-covid-vax-mandates