14 hours Ago By Emma McNamee
DULUTH — A former professor at Lake Superior College is suing the college’s leadership and the governor of Minnesota after he was dismissed from his position in 2022 for refusing COVID-19 vaccination. The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed the suit in federal court on April 9 on behalf of Russell Stewart, who taught at LSC for 30 years. The philosophy and ethics professor is seeking to be reinstated as a teacher at the college, and an acknowledgment that his constitutional rights were violated.
ADVERTISEMENT “During COVID, this was a huge issue of governments often not going through the legislative process and issuing a course of mandates that involve people’s personal health decisions,” said Jenin Younes, litigation counsel with the NCLA, a nonprofit legal organization with a focus on constitutional liberties. In August 2021, as students and faculty returned to campus, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz issued a policy mandating proof of COVID vaccination for government employees.
To prevent transmission, on-site employees could alternatively submit to weekly testing if they weren’t vaccinated. As a public community college in the Minnesota State system, LSC faculty were included in the mandate. Stewart, 60, requested an exemption from the mandate, citing concerns about limited vaccine testing and the legality of the mandate.
Additionally, having already contracted COVID, Stewart argued he had “natural immunity” and didn’t require the vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control, post-infection immunity can protect an individual against reinfection, but only lasts several months and decreases over time. Following multiple disciplinary hearings, Stewart was put on immediate unpaid leave in late September 2021, according to court documents.
He sent an email to students explaining the situation and why he would no longer be in class. In the email, Stewart stated that he was not against vaccines in general, nor was he particularly opposed to the COVID vaccines that were publicly available. The policy, however, he considered “unlawful, immoral, and arbitrary,” because it deployed "workplace coercion" to undermine the fundamental rights of bodily autonomy and privacy.
This email, and the sharing of political beliefs, would later be cited by LSC as another reason for Stewart’s dismissal, having violated Minnesota State’s policy using school technology for political activity. "He feels he was wrongfully fired,” Younes said. “He wants his job back.
He misses it, and at 60, I don't think he's planning to move away and find a new place to teach." ADVERTISEMENT Younes said that her interest was sparked in the case after an “interesting” interpretation of a Supreme Court case that has long been used as legal precedent where mandated vaccinations are concerned, came out of the 9th Circuit. The case, Jacobson v.
Massachusetts, arose out of the Boston smallpox epidemic in the early 1900s. Decided in 1905, the Supreme Court upheld a state’s ability to mandate vaccinations in the interest of public health, even when individuals objected. “That has been, in my opinion, a big problem.
A lot of lower courts have read ( Jacobson ) to stand for the proposition that governments can mandate any vaccine and it should just be rubber-stamped ...
if the state says they are doing it for public health reasons, then that's all the court needs to look at and the case is over.” This, according to Younes, is the wrong interpretation. In her eyes, the government must balance the interests of an individual’s freedoms in refusing unwanted medical treatment or testing, with the public health benefit.
She argued that allowing states to mandate vaccinations when, at that time, things like impact on transmission rates were unknown, could have larger impacts. “One has to look at the broader implications of this,” said Younes. “If the government can force you to do things for your own health, which is sort of the justification that they've fallen back on, that there's no end to what they could do .
.. the idea that the government can impose medical measures on you without sufficient evidence that it does anything to benefit the public is troubling, and I think it's a slippery slope.
” The NCLA, which operates out of Washington D.C., has been involved in similar lawsuits across the country, with mixed results.
While some cases end in dismissal or settlements, Younes says there are active cases regarding challenges to state medical mandates in the interest of public health that could potentially end up before the Supreme Court. “I would hope that the Supreme Court would take a case,” said Younes. “I think they might be sick of COVID, but if we ever find ourselves in this situation again, I think it’s important to tee up the law from the circuits for the next time there's an emergency.
” The complaint named LSC President Patricia Rogers and several other administrators alongside Gov. Walz. The college responded to media requests stating that LSC is committed to thoroughly investigating all complaints presented to the institution, and would refrain from commenting on ongoing litigation.
ADVERTISEMENT The office of Gov. Walz did not respond to the News Tribune’s request for comment..
