by Shawn Fleetwood at The Federalist
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares delivered a legal opinion on Friday arguing that state universities do not possess the authority to require students to receive the COVID jab as a condition for enrollment or attendance of in-person classes.
Addressed to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the opinion notes that while “Virginia’s public institutions of higher education are public corporations” and “are afforded separate corporate status,” they ultimately “remain under control of the General Assembly and may only exercise such powers as the General Assembly has expressly conferred or necessarily implied.”
“The General Assembly has [also] enacted statutes governing specific aspects of university operations such as student health. … With regard to immunizations, the General Assembly has made clear the immunizations that are required for a student to enroll in an institution of higher education. Under § 23.1-800 of the Code of Virginia, ‘each student shall be immunized by vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles (rubeola), German measles (rubella), and mumps’ prior to enrollment ‘for the first time in any baccalaureate public institution of higher education,’” Miyares wrote.
“Under long-established law, ‘[w]hen faced with a choice between a specific and general statute, the former is controlling.’ Thus, when determining what immunizations a university may require its students to receive, § 23.1-800, as the more specific statute governing student vaccination, takes precedence over the more general authority provided to boards under § 23.1-1301,” he continued.
Miyares went on to argue that while the General Assembly…
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