Seventh Circuit opinion — Klaassen v. Trustees of Indiana University (N.D. Ind.)

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An opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Ryan Klaassen, et al. v. Trustees of Indiana University, No. 21-2326, decided August 2, 2021 and filed as Document 13, on appeal from the Northern District of Indiana, No. 1:21-CV-238 DRL. Writing for the panel, Circuit Judge Easterbrook describes the university's requirement that students be vaccinated against COVID-19 unless exempt for religious or medical reasons, with exempt students required to wear masks and be tested. Eight students contend the conditions violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Relying on Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the opinion states that vaccination is a condition of attending the university and that the plaintiffs have ample educational opportunities elsewhere. The motion for an injunction pending appeal is denied.

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Case: 21-2326 Document: 13 Filed: 08/02/2021 Pages: 4

In the

United States Court of Apneals
For the Seventh Circuit

No. 21-2326

RYAN KLAASSEN, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,

vz.

TRUSTEES OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY,
Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Indiana, Fort Wayne Division.
No. 1:21-CV-238 DRL — Damon R. Leichty, Judge.

DECIDED AUGUST 2, 2021

Before EASTERBROOK, SCUDDER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. Starting next semester, all stu-
dents at Indiana University must be vaccinated against
COVID-19 unless they are exempt for religious or medical
reasons. Exempt students must wear masks and be tested for
the disease twice a week. Eight students contend in this suit
that these conditions of attendance violate the Due Process
Clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. The dis-
trict court denied plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary
Case: 21-2326 Document: 13 Filed: 08/02/2021 Pages: 4

2 No. 21-2326

injunction, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIs 133300 (N.D. Ind. July 18,
2021), and they ask us to issue an injunction pending appeal.

Given Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), which
holds that a state may require all members of the public to be
vaccinated against smallpox, there can’t be a constitutional
problem with vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. Plaintiffs as-
sert that the rational-basis standard used in Jacobson does not
offer enough protection for their interests and that courts
should not be as deferential to the decisions of public bodies
as Jacobson was, but a court of appeals must apply the law es-
tablished by the Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs invoke substantive due process. Under Washing-
ton v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720-22 (1997), and other deci-
sions, such an argument depends on the existence of a funda-
mental right ingrained in the American legal tradition. Yet Ja-
cobson, which sustained a criminal conviction for refusing to
be vaccinated, shows that plaintiffs lack such a right. To the
contrary, vaccination requirements, like other public-health
measures, have been common in this nation.

And this case is easier than Jacobson for the University, for
two reasons.

First, Jacobson sustained a vaccination requirement that
lacked exceptions for adults. See 197 U.S. at 30. But Indiana
University has exceptions for persons who declare vaccina-
tion incompatible with their religious beliefs and persons for
whom vaccination is medically contraindicated. The prob-
lems that may arise when a state refuses to make accommo-
dations therefore are not present in this case. Indeed, six of
the eight plaintiffs have claimed the religious exception, and
a seventh is eligible for it. These plaintiffs just need to wear
Case: 21-2326 Document: 13 Filed: 08/02/2021 Pages: 4

No. 21-2326 3

masks and be tested, requirements that are not constitution-
ally problematic. (The eighth plaintiff does not qualify for an
exemption, which is why we have a justiciable controversy.)

Second, Indiana does not require every adult member of
the public to be vaccinated, as Massachusetts did in Jacobson.
Vaccination is instead a condition of attending Indiana Uni-
versity. People who do not want to be vaccinated may go else-
where. Many universities require vaccination against SARS-
CoV-2, but many others do not. Plaintiffs have ample educa-
tional opportunities.

Each university may decide what is necessary to keep
other students safe in a congregate setting. Health exams and
vaccinations against other diseases (measles, mumps, rubella,
diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, varicella, meningitis, influenza,
and more) are common requirements of higher education.
Vaccination protects not only the vaccinated persons but also
those who come in contact with them, and at a university
close contact is inevitable.

We assume with plaintiffs that they have a right in bodily
integrity. They also have a right to hold property. Yet they or
their parents must surrender property to attend Indiana Uni-
versity. Undergraduates must part with at least $11,000 a year
(in-state tuition), even though Indiana could not summarily
confiscate that sum from all residents of college age.

Other conditions of enrollment are normal and proper.
The First Amendment means that a state cannot tell anyone
what to read or write, but a state university may demand that
students read things they prefer not to read and write things
they prefer not to write. A student must read what a professor
assigns, even if the student deems the books heretical, and
Case: 21-2326 Document: 13 Filed: 08/02/2021 Pages: 4

4 No. 21-2326

must write exams or essays as required. See, e.g., Fleischfresser
v. Directors of School District 200, 15 F.3d 680, 687 (7th Cir.
1994); Wood v. Arnold, 915 F.3d 308 (4th Cir. 2019); Smith v.
Board of School Commissioners, 827 F.2d 684 (11th Cir. 1987). A
student told to analyze the role of nihilism in Dostoevsky’s
The Possessed but who submits an essay about Iago’s motiva-
tions in Othello will flunk.

If conditions of higher education may include surrender-
ing property and following instructions about what to read
and write, it is hard to see a greater problem with medical
conditions that help all students remain safe when learning.
A university will have trouble operating when each student
fears that everyone else may be spreading disease. Few peo-
ple want to return to remote education—and we do not think
that the Constitution forces the distance-learning approach on
a university that believes vaccination (or masks and frequent
testing of the unvaccinated) will make in-person operations
safe enough.

The motion for an injunction pending appeal is denied.


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