West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey (R) issued several executive orders that eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from state universities and allow for religious exemptions for school vaccine requirements.
“Theories of DEI are contrary to equal protection guarantees of the West Virginia and United States Constitution,” reads one of the executive orders. “It is in the interest of the citizens of West Virginia that the State government treat them as equals under the law instead of preferentially or discriminatorily based on race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.”
The order declared that no entity receiving state funding should “grant or support DEI staff positions, activities, procedures, or programs to the extent they grant preferential treatment based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin over that of another.”
According to Morrisey’s executive order allowing for religious exemptions to vaccines, the Commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health and the State Health Officer are to “establish a process for objections to compulsory school immunization from persons who desire to send their children to a state school or state-regulated child care center but object on religious or conscientious grounds to one or more vaccine required by the compulsory immunization law.”
“Forcing those West Virginians to vaccinate their children despite their religious and moral objections substantially burdens the free exercise of religion in violation of the inherent religious liberties guaranteed by the COnstitutions of the United States and West Virginia,” the order says.
Other executive orders pertain to school choice, spending, government efficiency, defining men and women, and labeling fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.
