Klaassen v. Trs. of Ind. Univ. - No. 1:21-CV-238 DRL, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133300 (N.D. Ind. July 18, 2021)

Rule:

The "unconstitutional conditions doctrine" forbids the university from pulling the rug out from under the students in a roundabout way. Under this doctrine, the government may not deny a benefit to a person because he exercises a constitutional right. This doctrine protects constitutional rights by preventing the government from coercing people into giving them up. It aims to prevent the government from achieving indirectly what the Constitution prevents it from achieving directly.

Facts:

Acting under state authority, and with the vision of promoting public health and restoring the educational and social environment of the university's campuses, President Michael McRobbie created a university restart committee during the spring of 2021 to make recommendations to the Board of Trustees for the fall semester. The restart committee's charge was to advise and recommend requirements necessary to resume "normal face-to-face" operations. The committee recommended, and the Board of Trustees adopted, a blanket vaccination mandate, subject to certain exemptions.  Initially, the policy required all students, faculty, and staff to submit proof of vaccination before returning to campus, but the university revised this requirement after Indiana passed its anti-passport law. The policy today requires all students, faculty, and staff to be fully vaccinated. The choice of foregoing vaccination is not inconsequential. If not vaccinated, students are not permitted on campus, their emails and university accounts are suspended, and their access cards are deactivated. Although it seems from argument that the university will not create an informant culture, it reserves the right to pursue disciplinary action should a student deceive the process. Faculty and staff who refuse vaccination face termination. For those who receive exemption from vaccination, the policy imposes additional safety requirements, such as more frequent testing, mandatory quarantine, masking in public spaces, and returning to their permanent address or quarantine in case of a serious outbreak. The faculty councils from Indiana University—Bloomington and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the staff council from Indiana University—Bloomington, have endorsed the policy, as has the graduate and professional student government. Eight students sued Indiana University because of its vaccination mandate and because of the extra requirements of masking, testing, and social distancing that apply to those who receive an exemption, and prayed for preliminary injunction.

Issue:

Do the students have a valid unconstitutional condition claim against the Board of Trustees?

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

The first step in an unconstitutional condition claim "is to identify the nature and scope of the constitutional right arguably imperiled by the denial of a public benefit." Here, the Fourteenth Amendment "liberty" at stake is a college student's right to refuse a vaccine, today at this stage of the pandemic. The Supreme Court has assumed (using its word) and strongly suggested that individuals have a constitutional right to refuse unwanted medical treatment in a long line of previous decisions. However, in those decisions, this liberty interest has remained confined either by duly enacted and constitutional state laws or the state's legitimate interests that it had rationally pursued in regulation. The rights recognized (or assumed) in these cases weren't "simply deduced from abstract concepts of personal autonomy."  They were rooted in longstanding common law rules or legal traditions consistent with this Nation's history. The students, quite skillfully represented in this emergency setting, offer no preliminary record of such historic rules, laws, or traditions that would facilitate the court's announcement, now in mere days from receiving this case, that a right to refuse a vaccine is anything more than a significant liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment. The dearth of this record isn't a passing point. Indeed, both Cruzan and Glucksberg were limited to an individual's choice related to the refusal of lifesaving subsistence or medical treatment—with no ramifications to the physical health of others. Vaccines address a collective enemy, not just an individual one. Indeed, "the elimination of communicable diseases through vaccination [is] one of the greatest achievements of public health in the 20th century," and it continues to be so now in this century. A vaccine is implemented as a matter of public health, and historically hasn't been constitutionally deterred from state mandate.