AUSTIN – Last Thursday, Attorney General Paxton sued the San Antonio Independent School District and its superintendent for mandating all district employees receive a COVID-19 shot.
Paxton asserted the mandate was in violation of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Executive Order 38, which bans public entities from requiring individuals to receive COVID-19 vaccines administered under the Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) “emergency use authorization.”
The next day, the District’s superintendent issued a District-wide “clarification”, saying that he “will not compel any staff members to be vaccinated until the vaccines are fully approved by the FDA.”
“State law could not be clearer: ‘No governmental entity can compel any individual to receive a COVID-19 vaccine administered under an emergency use authorization.’ But San Antonio ISD tried to play by its own set of rules. Thankfully, we stopped them,” said Paxton. “The law states that ‘receiving a COVID-19 vaccine under an emergency use authorization is always voluntary in Texas and will never be mandated by the government.’ I will always fight to support the rule of law."