US: Law prof who had COVID-19 sues over university’s mask, testing mandate

Reuters

August 5, 2021: A George Mason University law professor has sued the Virginia university’s leadership in federal court over its reopening policy, alleging its requirement that unvaccinated employees wear masks on campus and submit to COVID-19 testing violates his constitutional rights.

Todd Zywicki, who has taught at the Antonin Scalia School of Law since 1998, said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that the policy is “unmistakably coercive” and an “unlawful mandate” that places unfair additional burdens on unvaccinated employees who come on campus.

Because he tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies after a bout with the virus last year, there is no “compelling governmental interest in overriding Professor Zywicki’s personal autonomy and constitutional rights by forcing him, in essence, to either be vaccinated or to suffer adverse professional consequences,” the complaint asserts.

Zywicki is represented by lawyers at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit civil rights firm founded in 2017 that aims to “protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State,” according to its website.

Disclaimer: This article was originally published by Reuters.