De Blasio assures teacher vaccine mandate will stand, cites related case
The city will ultimately win its legal battle to enforce a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all Department of Education employees because it’s prevailed in similar cases, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
“We’ve been in court with this very same set of information, very same argument at both the state and federal level. We’ve won previously. We expect to win again and quickly this week,” de Blasio said at his daily press briefing, remote from City Hall.
The city’s mandate that all teachers and other school workers be vaccinated was supposed to take effect today, but a federal appeals court paused the requirement Friday pending a full hearing on the matter later this week.
“There is going to be a full procedure in the course of this week and we’re very, very confident that the city, the Department of Education, is going to prevail because we’re trying to protect kids, we’re trying to protect families, we’re trying to protect working people in our schools,” de Blasio said.
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted a temporary injunction against the mandate Friday evening, and handed the case to a three-judge panel for an “expedited review.”
That hearing is slated for Wednesday.
The DOE said it doesn’t believe the case will hinder the mandate going forward.
“We’re confident our vaccine mandate will continue to be upheld once all the facts have been presented, because that is the level of protection our students and staff deserve,” said Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for the city Department of Education.
In the meantime, all DOE staff must revert to the prior policy, which required them to be vaccinated or take a weekly COVID-19 test.
On Friday, a federal judge in Brooklyn cleared the way for a city vaccine mandate in a different case and circumstance. The ruling recognized the authority of the city’s Department of Health “to implement a mandate that is firmly grounded in science and the expertise of public health officials from across the nation,” according to a de Blasio administration spokesman.
And on Sept. 10, a Manhattan state court judge tossed a suit opposing the city’s mandate requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination at city restaurants and other establishments.
But that suit was nixed on a technicality because it wasn’t filed under the right legal category.
De Blasio said Monday that 87 percent of all DOE employees have had at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, 90 percent of teachers have gotten the jab, and 97 percent of principals are at least partially inoculated.
