U. of Alabama Reverses Staff Vaccine Mandate After Threats from Conservative Groups

After threats of litigation from conservatives, the University of Alabama at Birmingham has reversed its prior vaccine mandate for employees. According to AL.com, the school is waiting for further details of the federal mandate under President Biden’s executive order. The conservative legal organization, Alabama Center for Law and Liberty, wrote to UAB officials arguing that Alabama’s preemptive vaccine passport ban prohibits the state-run university from enforcing immunizations. “The Alabama Attorney General has examined the law and concluded that ‘no government, school, or business in Alabama may demand that a constituent, or customer, respectively, be vaccinated for COVID-19 or show proof of his or her vaccination for COVID-19,” said the letter. The University of Alabama school system has been plagued by waves of massive COVID outbreaks among students on its campuses—and at the height of the pandemic last August, the system warned professors in Tuscaloosa not to tell students about infected classmates.