Trump Signs Order Ending Covid Vaccine Mandates in Schools Receiving Federal Money
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week that will prevent schools from receiving federal money if they mandate that their students receive the COVID-19 vaccination.
The order, which Trump signed in the Oval Office on Feb 14, also instructs the federal departments of Education and Health and Human Services to issue compliance guidelines and to create plans to “end coercive COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”
Among the reasons given by the White House for the executive order is that schools which enforced or continue to enforce the mandates seek to “pressure students into making COVID-19 vaccine decisions based on government coercion, rather than on their own informed choices.”
The order, which only applies to the COVID-19 vaccine, follows an earlier executive order signed on Jan 27 reinstating service members who were either involuntarily discharged or who voluntarily left in order to avoid the COVID shot which was mandated by the Department of Defense.
Trump had previously campaigned on the promise that he would, “not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate.”
Many schools and universities had enacted strict COVID-19 vaccine mandates as a condition of attendance during the early days of the pandemic, although many of those institutions have since backed away from such requirements.
Backlash against the mandates was enough to prompt 21 states to enact legislation banning COVID vaccinations for students.
Lawmakers in Montana have proposed a ban on mRNA vaccines and an Idaho health district has chosen not to offer the COVID vaccine in the six counties it serves.
Though Trump was initially a proponent of the COVID vaccine, which was developed during his first term, his new administration has taken a different approach from the heavy-handed mandates that the Biden White House pushed on schools, universities and employers.