![handle is hein.journals/osljsxcr83 and id is 1 raw text is:
OHIO STATE LAW JOURNAL SIXTH CIRCUIT REVIEW
Constitutional Interpretation Remains Unsettled
After Sixth Circuit's Preliminary Assessment of
University Vaccine Mandate
PATRICK A. STEVENS*
At the beginning of the 2021 school year, Western Michigan University
(WMU) instituted a policy requiring student-athletes to be vaccinated against
COVID-19, and sixteen student-athletes requested religious exemptions to this
requirement, which the university denied.1 Barred from participation in team
activities, these student-athletes sued WMU in federal court for allegedly
violating their rights under the First Amendment.2 The case reached the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals as WMU sought a stay of the district court's
preliminary injunction, which kept the school from enforcing the vaccination
requirement against the plaintiffs.3 Because the likelihood of success of a
plaintiff's claim is typically the determinative factor when the Sixth Circuit
decides whether to stay a district court's preliminary injunction,4 the court
declined to stay the preliminary injunction in Dahl v. Board of Trustees of
Western Michigan University.5 The court's analysis in Dahl delineates the
distinctions between WMU's vaccination requirement and mandates that are
constitutionally valid. This decision also spotlights the precarious balance
between proper deference to sincerely held religious beliefs and misguided
deference to what may instead be political and social ideologies masquerading
as-or entangled with religious beliefs.
I. DISTINGUISHING WMU'S POLICY FROM CONSTITUTIONAL VACCINE
MANDATES
Although COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and highly
recommended,6 the student-athletes at WMU are far from the only group
challenging vaccine mandates by state institutions on religious grounds in
* Patrick A. Stevens is a J.D. candidate at The Ohio State University Moritz College
of Law and writes for THE OHIO STATE LAw JOURNAL Sixth Circuit Review.
1 Dahl v. Bd. of Trs. of W. Mich. Univ., 15 F.4th 728, 730 (6th Cir. 2021) (per curiam)
[https://perma.cc/7FZD-HTUG].
2Id.
3 Id.
4Id.
5d. at 736.
6 See, e.g., Key Things to Know About COVID-19 Vaccines, CENTERS FOR DISEASE
CONTROL AND PREVENTION (Oct. 7, 2021), https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-
ncov/vaccines/keythingstoknow.html [https://perma.cc/C8LT-MPDA].
2022]
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