Washington, DC, April 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New Civil Liberties Alliance has filed a Complaint challenging the unlawful firing of tenured Lake Superior College (LSC) ethics and philosophy Professor Russell Stewart. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and LSC forced Prof. Stewart, who had worked at the college for 30 years, to choose between losing his job or complying with a 2021-2022 Covid-19 vaccination or testing requirement for state employees that he opposed on philosophical, medical, and legal grounds. As Prof. Stewart argued during multiple disciplinary hearings, it made no sense to force him to get a vaccine that did not stop transmission, especially once he acquired immunity to Covid-19 in December 2021. NCLA asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota to declare that this mandate and the retaliatory measures imposed upon our client for engaging in First Amendment-protected speech are unconstitutional, and to order his reinstatement to work at LSC.
The Constitution does not ordinarily allow the government to mandate a medical treatment for an employee for the benefit of the recipient alone. Because the government had no legitimate, let alone compelling, interest in forcing Professor Stewart to undergo vaccination or testing that provided no benefit to the community, the mandate deprived him of his Fourteenth Amendment rights to substantive due process and equal protection under the law. It also defied the Supreme Court’s Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine that forbids the government from requiring Americans to give up a constitutional right in order to receive a benefit or privilege.
Professor Stewart argues that the Supreme Court’s infamous 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision, which upheld a Massachusetts smallpox vaccination mandate, does not permit Gov. Walz’s Covid vaccine mandate. Contrary to the erroneous determinations of various lower courts, which have interpreted Jacobson as greenlighting any vaccine mandate, the Supreme Court balanced the plaintiff’s liberty interest in declining the unwanted smallpox vaccine (which did stop transmission to third parties) against the State’s interest in preventing that disease from spreading. Manufacturers never claimed Covid-19 vaccines stopped transmission. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Minnesota Department of Health knew or should have known this when Gov. Walz imposed the vaccine mandate. Thus, Defendants had no legal justification for overriding Professor Stewart’s right to refuse medical treatment by firing him for not complying with this mandate.
Right after an LSC disciplinary hearing for resisting the mandate, Prof. Stewart emailed his students explaining that he would not be in class for the indefinite future because of the unjust and irrational policy. LSC Defendants cited that email among the reasons for his termination. As a public employee, Prof. Stewart was entitled to communicate with his students on matters of public concern, as well as to criticize his employer, so punishing him for sending this email constituted a retaliatory measure that unlawfully abridged his First Amendment rights.
NCLA released the following statements:
“Professor Stewart, who was beloved by students and colleagues alike, did nothing wrong by refusing to submit to an irrational, arbitrary medical protocol imposed by Gov. Walz. LSC added insult to injury by also punishing him for exercising his First Amendment rights. His termination, after three decades of service to LSC and his community, was not only unlawful but cruel. He must be reinstated as soon as possible to rectify this injustice.
— Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“It is disappointing that, five years after the pandemic, Lake Superior College and the State of Minnesota refuse to recognize the legal and factual folly of its vaccine mandate. NCLA is proud to stand up for Professor Stewart’s bodily integrity and First Amendment rights.”
— Greg Dolin, M.D., Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA
For more information visit the case page here.
ABOUT NCLA
NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.
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Joe Martyak New Civil Liberties Alliance 703-403-1111 joe.martyak@ncla.legal
