Tennessee Citizens Push Back Against ETSU’s Request For Blanket Authority To Mandate Vaccines
Image Credit: Jimmy Emerson, DVM / CC
The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –
East Tennessee University filed a request for a rulemaking hearing on July 1st asking that they be given the power to set their own vaccine mandates in the case of an outbreak of any communicable disease.
Per Tennessee code, the school was required to have a public hearing and accept comments from citizens, stakeholders and students.
Every concerned citizen commenter on Zoom and in-person on campus voiced disapproval of requiring the COVID vaccine or other vaccines especially during times of a pandemic, including any other experimental medical treatments.
The prevailing tone was that the school should not mandate and that students should be able to make the decision for themselves.
One ETSU alumni and father of two current ETSU students suggested the school should take the opportunity to be a thought leader on this issue instead of falling in line with the typical cancel culture censorship that stifles debate on the issue.
The video of the meeting is available for viewing HERE. Testimonies start at roughly six minutes in.
Kay Lennon McGrew, Senior Associate AD/SWA and Assistant University Counsel, hosted the meeting via Zoom and was joined by Dr. Mark Fulks, University Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, on campus.
To start the meeting, McGrew stated that Tennessee Code TCA- 4-5-2022 requires that certain policies must be promulgated through the formal rulemaking process.
McGrew also stated that per Tennessee code, the notice for the hearing was published on July 1st, 2022 on the Secretary of State website as well as the East Tennessee State website and that state law requires that an institution have a rule with regard to student immunization.
McGrew pointed out that the school’s proposed immunization rule is not specific to the pandemic and is not specific to any one disease or any one vaccination and that if immunizations are to be required, the institute via the rule itself must provide exemptions and conform to any other exemptions provided by state or federal law.
Danielle Goodrich, Tri-Cities Director of Tennessee Stands, who was in attendance at the hearing on campus, pointed out that it was not publicized in a way that students and staff could easily find it.
Goodrich stated that Tennessee Stands notified students and staff and they confirmed they were unaware of the meeting. The students that replied expressed concern that the hearing was on their first day of classes and held while classes were in session, therefore many were unable to attend.
Goodrich told ETSU officials that they should be more diligent in their transparency on issues concerning students and staff and suggested a press release and an email to be sent out regarding events such as the hearing.
“They said that was unlikely. I find that unsatisfactory,” Goodrich said.
Goodrich said, “We asked if our testimonies would be forwarded onto the board and to Gov Ops, ultimately deciding on this rule. They stated they would send a summary. We stated we preferred our actual testimonies be sent on. They advised us to FOIA request the zoom meeting. We did.”
About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career. Most recently, he served as Deputy Director for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others. He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History. Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com
With the terrible results of this orchestrated pandemic the one thing ETSU took away was the vaccination mandate? Now that we know the Vax are irrelevant for prevention but excellent for causing deaths and injuries I would strongly advise the administration create a panel of Chemistry, Medical, students, parents etc to review any further knee jerk reactions by federal, state, locals in the event we have another alleged health emergency to do due diligence before any ridiculous Vax or mask mandates.
Just another Liberal University who wants a Power trip to control something just like the Fed. Gov. and look what a joke that was, Shut downs, hide in the basement, Masks and mandates and did nothing but scare people into compliance they thought. These Liberal Universities need to be de-funded and brought back to earth.
Yup, lucifer’s “higher” ejukaters.
CONTROL
CONTROL
CONTROL
I was in attendance for this meeting along with many others. We had 2 physicians who expressed the difficulty in reporting anything to VAERS, and who also expressed that the number of people being treated for adverse effects is overwhelming. We also asked ETSU to reach out to one of their students who has lost her ball scholarship because of the side effects from being forced by her coaches to get this experiment. She collapsed on the mound 10 days after her second jab and was told by numerous medical experts that this was from the jab. We asked several times for someone from ETSU (a medical school university) to reach out to her, and to this day she was not contacted by anyone. She had to reach out to them before anyone even offered to hear her story. She suffers to this day with issues from her forced experiment by this university. Irresponsible and Tragic! Shame on ETSU!