The leadership of the SPUSD should ask its lawyers to provide a detailed briefing on the 9th Circuit’s June 7 ruling in Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Carvalho, and all SPUSD leaders should read the opinions themselves — especially the concurring opinion of Judge Daniel Collins.
This decision will control your behavior for as long as you remain in the positions of responsibility you now hold. You can find the opinions here: cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/06/07/22-55908.pdf
Collins, in particular, reminds us that the bodies of employees aren’t the chattel of their employers, and the right to refuse medical coercion is a fundamental and ineradicable human right. He refers to case law that elaborates “the common-law rule that forced medication was a battery, and the long legal tradition protecting the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment.”
You will never again be permitted to assault the medical autonomy of SPUSD employees, who are not things that you own. You owe apologies, and employment offers with back pay, to the SPUSD employees who were improperly fired for refusing medical treatment they didn’t wish to receive, and you owe an apology to the community for your grossly immoral and unlawful decision to embrace medical coercion. Mercifully, the 9th Circuit has ensured that you will never behave like this again without severe consequences.
Chris Bray
South Pasadena
First published in the June 14 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
