The Los Angeles Unified School District has been slapped with a lawsuit over its mandate that students 12 and older get their COVID-19 shots, a requirement which attorneys for the plaintiff contend is unlawful because it does not allow for religious or personal belief exemptions.
The lawsuit was filed last week on behalf of a parent of a 12-year-old student who claims that their child, along with other LAUSD students who do not comply with the mandate, would be discriminated against by being denied an in-person education and the opportunity to participate in extracurricular programs.
The plaintiff, identified in court documents only by the initials G.F., contends their child would be denied participation in two extracurricular activities that he’s currently involved in, when he misses the Oct. 31 deadline for LAUSD students in extracurricular programs to receive their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and that he would be banned from campus second semester for not meeting a mid-December deadline for all other age-eligible students to receive their second dose.
The complaint states that banning unvaccinated students from campus or extracurricular activities would be discriminatory, since vaccinated students and a limited number of non-vaccinated students could continue to attend school in person.
Students with certain medical conditions are exempt from the mandate. Additionally, migrant students, as well as those facing homelessness, are in foster care or who come from military families receive “conditional admissions” that exempt them from the mandate.
The complaint also states that LAUSD officials lack authority to require students to receive a vaccine that isn’t currently on the state’s list of mandatory vaccines for school children.
Gov. Gavin Newsom this month announced that all K-12 students in California must get their COVID-19 shots after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives full approval of the vaccine for their age groups or grade spans, such as grades K-6 or 7-12. So far, only the Pfizer vaccine has received full approval for people 16 and older. The vaccine can be administered to children 12-15 under an emergency use authorization currently.
The complaint further stated that the district is requiring eligible students to be vaccinated without taking into account that some students who were previously infected have natural immunity against the coronavirus.
“California law supports existing statewide immunization requirements for schoolchildren; however, an individual public school district mandate requiring children to receive a vaccine that is not on the state’s immunization list and is not yet FDA-approved, for a virus of which many of its students are already immune and that does not generally cause serious conditions, and which poses very real health risks to children, is indeed unprecedented,” the complaint states.
A spokesperson for LAUSD declined to comment on Thursday, Oct. 14, saying the district had not been served with the lawsuit.
The complaint referenced multiple studies that raise questions about the benefits-versus-risks of administering COVID-19 vaccines to children and cited increased cases of myocarditis — the inflammation of the heart muscle — especially among male teens.
It also noted declining coronavirus cases in LAUSD since the school year began and said that infected children often have mild to no symptoms. Citing data from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Foundation, the complaint stated that just under 1% of children in reporting states with COVID-19 were hospitalized as of Sept. 2.
LAUSD officials have, meanwhile, insisted that the benefits of getting vaccinated outweigh the risks.
This week, during a presentation to the school board about vaccinations, Dr. Robert Gilchick from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health noted that in August, there were 300 positive cases of coronavirus per 100,000 people among vaccinated youths ages 12 to 17, compared to more than 2,000 cases per 100,000 people among the unvaccinated in this age group. The hospitalization rate among the vaccinated in this age group was 0.3 per 100,000 people versus 10 per 100,000 among the unvaccinated.
He also cited U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showing that among 16- and 17-year-olds, the occurrence of a myocarditis case was 8 per 1 million Pfizer vaccine doses for females and 73 per 1 million doses per males nationally. At the same time, for every 1 million vaccine doses, the number of COVID-19 cases prevented were 77,800 among females and 56,700 among males, and hospitalization preventions were 520 among females and 500 among males, according to the presentation.
In addition to the case against LAUSD, a similar lawsuit was filed this week against San Diego Unified by the group Let Them Breathe, which was formed in opposition to school masking mandates and which subsequently launched a Let Them Choose initiative to oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates for students.
The San Diego school board voted in September to require students 16 and older to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in the coming months.
The plaintiffs in both cases are represented by the firm Aannestad Andelin & Corn LLP, based in San Diego County.