The Department of Defense has stopped processing exemption requests and disciplinary actions for civilian employees who have not received the COVID-19 vaccine, Military Times reports. Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Biden Administration didn’t have the authority to enforce the mandate.
“This case is not about whether folks should get vaccinated against COVID-19 — the court believes they should,” Texas district Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote in last week’s ruling. “It is not even about the federal government’s power, exercised properly, to mandate vaccination of its employees. It is instead about whether the president can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment. That, under the current state of the law as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.”
“To ensure compliance with the preliminary nationwide injunction issued on January 21, the Department of Defense is not taking any further actions to implement or enforce the civilian employee vaccination as required by Executive Order 14043 at this time,” spokeswoman Lisa Lawrence told Military Times on Thursday.
The Pentagon's pause on mandate enforcements for civilian workers comes after a federal judge ruled that the Biden administration doesn’t have legal standing to enforce it for federal employees, which could include firings.https://t.co/IYcVCrA28f
— Military Times (@MilitaryTimes) January 27, 2022