COLUMBUS, Ohio — A bill was introduced into the Ohio legislature this week that would bar both public and chartered schools from discriminating against students based on their COVID-19 vaccination status.
Republican Representative P. Scott Lipps introduced House Bill 739 on Tuesday.
According to H.B. 739, “no public or chartered nonpublic school shall discriminate against an individual, including by excluding, penalizing, or segregating the individual, refusing to enroll the individual, or withholding from or denying to the individual any advantage, facility, good, opportunity, privilege, or service, based on either of the following: (1) Whether or not the individual has received one or more doses of a vaccine against COVID-19, including any of its variants.”
The bill has yet to be scheduled for committee hearings.
In October of 2021, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a similar bill into law. H.B. 244 barred school districts from making a person get a vaccine that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not fully approved. Since that time, the FDA has granted such approval.
