Court of Appeal Will Consider Arguments on CSU Effort to Eliminate Student Vaccination Requirements

A California Court of Appeal will hear oral arguments on October 15 about CSU management’s effort to eliminate student vaccination requirements.  

CFA members challenged the move and have won mostly favorable decisions from the California Public Employment Board (PERB), but CSU management appealed to the Court of Appeals in September 2024.  

In February 2023, without notifying us or agreeing to bargain over the decision, CSU management unilaterally eliminated immunization requirements for students for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, TDAP (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis), and tuberculosis. The move only left a single vaccine requirement, required by state law: the hepatitis B vaccine for students under age 18.  

CFA members then filed an unfair labor practice charge with PERB, resulting in a complaint from the board that led to a hearing before a PERB administrative law judge in August 2023.  

In January 2024, the administrative law judge ruled that CSU management was obliged to meet and confer with the union over the effects of its decision to eliminate health and safety measures that ensure students do not spread infectious diseases. The judge also ordered CSU management to rescind the 2023 policy and meet and negotiate with CFA members over the matter. 

Management then filed exceptions claiming that its policy had no reasonably foreseeable effects on faculty, and that it complied with any bargaining duty it held. We responded to management’s exceptions, urging PERB to affirm the administrative law judge’s decision. 

PERB in August 2024 affirmed the judge’s conclusion that management unlawfully began to implement the new vaccination policy without giving CFA advance notice and opportunity to bargain over the policy’s effects on faculty health and safety. But PERB declined to order that management rescind its new student vaccination policy. 

Despite the two decisions mostly in our favor, management will try to dig its heels in during oral arguments on October 15. We will again testify about the lack of notice, harm to faculty, and public health risks involved in lifting vaccine requirements.  

The effort to eliminate student vaccine requirements goes against the California Department of Public Health guidelines. States that have relaxed childhood vaccination requirements have seen increases in cases of diseases like measles, which have included some deaths from these preventable diseases. 

The CSU administration is in line with the Trump administration in their egregious negligence of public health, when they should be protecting students and workers in the CSU. High immunization levels are critical to preventing outbreaks, and changing the immunization levels on campuses poses serious health risks for students, faculty, staff, and their families.  

We will keep you informed on the outcome of the appeals process.