An unspecified number of students and faculty at the University of Pittsburgh have been disenrolled for failing to comply with the school’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
The university will remove these individuals from their courses and bar them from accessing campus buildings until they comply, at which point they may re-enroll and regain access.
The university announced in November that it would require all students, faculty, and staff to be fully vaccinated by December 2021, and any exemption would require a notarized attestation.
Pitt leaders said that by mounting this aggressive push to vaccinate individuals, “We will be able to maintain a high immunization rate on our campuses, while continuing to support our students and research, as well as protect our workforce, with minimal disruption to our programs, activities, or operations.”
The announcement comes as the Supreme Court is considering whether the Biden administration can require employees in private organizations to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Schools Crack Down
Pitt is the latest in a series of schools taking disciplinary action against students and employees who have refused COVID vaccines.
Another Pennsylvania university, Lehigh, has mandated COVID-19 booster shots by January 14 for the spring semester. Students who refuse to get the booster will be disenrolled from spring courses and lose access to their residence halls and campus buildings.
Last year, institutions such as Virginia Tech, University of New Mexico, University of Maryland, and Xavier University in New Orleans deregistered hundreds of students for failing to comply with the schools’ vaccine mandate.
“Some people are making personal choices and we respect those choices, but we have to make a decision based on the overall best interest of the entire community,” Xavier Chief of Staff Patrice Bell said.
