University of California is misleading students that they must comply with C19 vaccine mandates
UC websites and communications are deceiving and misleading countless students into thinking they must still comply with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate that no longer exists.
The University of California system “dropped” its COVID-19 vaccine mandate on May 16, 2023, but it is more complicated than one might expect. As such, countless students are still being coerced to comply with COVID-19 vaccine mandates because they being misled by language that does not completely capture the intent of the immunization policy changes under which all community members are eligible to “opt-out” of COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Since December 14, 2020, the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) has issued policy statements regarding community wide vaccination requirements for COVID-19 and flu vaccines. Since that time, there have been several changes and updates to the policy including an update on May 16, 2023 at which time all of the UC universities were directed by the UCOP to end their COVID-19 vaccine mandate as a systemwide opt-out. In other words, any community member (faculty, staff, student, volunteer, visitor, etc.) who no longer wanted to take updated COVID-19 shots became eligible to sign a simple declination form stating they wanted to opt-out of taking the recommended COVID-19 shots in order to enroll, attend, visit and/or work on any UC campus.
At the time this policy change was announced, I noted in several Substack articles and X posts that it was not ideal as it requires students to take action to opt-out versus just eliminating the COVID-19 vaccine requirement which as of last month, every other college has done (except healthcare programs at some colleges). Since President Trump issued the Executive Order called "Keeping Education Accessible and Ending Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates in Schools" on February 15, 2025, I strongly believe that we must make every effort to get the Trump administration to remove federal funding from all UC universities.
As of the May 16, 2023 policy update, there was no requirement to fill out an exemption and there was no requirement to list a reason for declining the COVID-19 vaccines. (FYI - as of January of 2025, all UC community members can now opt out of all vaccines by either signing a simple declaration form or by submitting an exemption letter with the appropriate office at each of the UCs). The most up-to-date immunization policy issued by the UCOP, including declination forms, can be viewed here.
However, there are several UC websites that are either both unclear and misleading by hiding the fact that all community members can either opt out or obtain exemptions to mandated vaccinations. For example, the gateway website where prospective students must enter and apply in order to be considered a first year or transfer applicant at any of the UCs still lists COVID-19 as a required vaccine. There is no mention of the opt-out or declination form that is available to everyone.
It gets worse. A parent whose son was recently accepted to the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) received an email (which was presumably sent to all newly accepted freshman) that includes language which makes it sound as though there is STILL a COVID-19 vaccination requirement at UCSD. Notice there is zero mention of the opt-out that is available to all incoming freshman and other community members and zero mention of the simple declination form that can be signed by community members to opt-out.
University of California at Irvine may be even worse than UCSD- they have at least one website which states students need to have a “medical exemption or another reason” to opt out of “NEW COVID-19 vaccines”. This is an outright lie; the declination form neither requires an exemption of any kind nor a reason to opt-out.
In case you were not aware, the University of California is the middle of providing court ordered discovery in a class-action lawsuit that was filed by former employees against the UC system for its implementation and enforcement of some of the most tyrannical of all COVID-19 vaccination policies. You can read more about the lawsuit below.
We have written several articles detailing the history of the UCOP COVID-19 immunization policy which you can read below.
We have also written about actions taken by parents and professors at the University of California system urging them to end COVID-19 vaccine mandates and actions taken by No College Mandates in the form of our several letter campaigns that are posted earlier in the history of this Substack and listed as Letter Campaigns #1-5.
So what is left to be done to urge the University of California to properly inform all community members about the option to decline COVID-19 vaccinations? Please write emails and make phone calls to the following offices as they are responsible for updating and monitoring the website pages that represent the UC system and the website pages of their member colleges.
Charles F. Robinson
UC Legal - Office of the General Counsel
University of California
1111 Franklin Street, 8th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 987-9800, (800) 933-9777
Charles.Robinson@ucop.edu
Michael V. Drake, MD
UC Office of the President
University of California
1111 Franklin Street, 8th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 987-9800, (800) 933-9777
president@ucop.edu
No College Mandates has been emailing and calling these offices for the past several weeks, but alone we cannot accomplish fixing this. Please take a few minutes out of your day to reach out to the UCOP to let them know we won’t stand for their misleading and deceiving language. Together, we have accomplished great things in the past with our outreach, and we can do it again.
Thank you for your help and support,
Lucia Sinatra
Co-founder, No College Mandates
Redrum
Redrum.
The UCs are becoming quite a headache for us tax payers. They don't seem to be working for the taxpayer anymore.
1. There is a strong suspicion that they practice affirmative action particularly hurting asian americans (and boys especially) when it comes to undergraduate admissions.
2. They admit 18% foreigners and give away the seats that should have gone to California residents who paid taxes. These foreigners are rich and usually not capable to getting admissions on merit in their home country. I suspect these foreigners are not the best and they cannibalize the good students in California.
3. The UCs are more interested in making money from hawking vaccines and anything from Pharma. This is where the law suit reference comes in.
4. Now we learn that they are trying to push Covid vaccines and making a quick buck.
Since their goal is to make money, may be we should convert them into private universities.