Last Thursday, the Supreme Court blocked OSHA’s COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees. Southern Adventist University would have been subject to the ETS if the mandate had passed through the court.
In an interview with the Accent, Vice President for Student Development Dennis Negrón said he is pleased with the outcome.
“I am pleased to say that the Supreme Court announced that the ETS by OSHA is an act that was beyond the powers of the federal government,” Negrón said. “So, that makes Southern’s responsibilities a whole lot less, and we’re pleased. We are not going to have to enforce some of the requirements that were going to be under this ETS.”
Last month, on December 3, Negrón sent an email to the student body stating that Southern would have required all employees, including student employees, to be either vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID-19 and wear a mask if OSHA had implemented the ETS. However, university administration suspended its planning for ETS implementation the next week, according to another email sent to the student body by Negrón.
Negrón said Southern had no plans to mandate vaccinations, but the university would have had to enforce a mask mandate and weekly testing for unvaccinated employees had the ETS been implemented.
“We weren’t ever going to enforce vaccinations, but enforce a mask mandate … throughout the rest of the year and enforce testing,” Negrón said in an interview with the Accent. “We’re very happy.”
