The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a directive prohibiting federal agencies from using COVID-19 vaccine status in any employment-related decisions. This guidance marks the final chapter in a contentious policy saga that began in 2021 under the Biden administration.
Provisions of the OPM Memo
The memo, titled “Prohibition of Use of Vaccine Status in Employment Decisions”, builds on previous OPM guidance that was issued after President Biden repealed the vaccine mandate in 2023 that directed federal agencies to ensure that none of their job postings listed COVID vaccination as a requirement.
The new OPM memo outlines the following mandates:
- Immediate Prohibition: Agencies may not consider an individual’s COVID-19 vaccine status, history of noncompliance with prior mandates, or exemption requests in decisions related to hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination.
- Record Expungement: Agencies must remove all references to vaccine status and related compliance issues from personnel records.
- Employee Opt-Out: Federal employees have a 90-day window to opt out of the record deletion if they choose.
Agencies must report their compliance with the memo to OPM no later than September 8, 2025.
“Things got out of hand during the pandemic, and federal workers were fired, punished, or sidelined for simply making a personal medical decision,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said. “That should never have happened. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we’re making sure the excesses of that era do not have lingering effects on federal workers.”
The Biden Vaccine Mandate: History, Controversy, and Legal Battles
Executive Order and Initial Rollout
In September 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order requiring all federal employees and contractors to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In that Order, he stated, “I have determined that to promote the health and safety of the Federal workforce and the efficiency of the civil service, it is necessary to require COVID-19 vaccination for all Federal employees, subject to such exceptions as required by law.”
Federal employees had 75 days to get vaccinated to comply with the mandate. Failure to do so meant being subject to disciplinary action, including the possibility of being fired.
The mandate include a religious exemption, but that ultimately came with its own set of controversies when it was revealed that some agencies were compiling databases of federal employees seeking an exemption from the vaccine mandate on the basis of their religion.
Legal Challenges and Court Decisions
The mandate quickly faced legal opposition:
- Feds for Medical Freedom v. Biden: Filed in December 2021, this lawsuit argued that the mandate violated constitutional rights and delayed religious accommodations. A nationwide injunction was issued in January 2022, halting enforcement.
- Supreme Court Split Rulings (Jan 2022):
- National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA: Blocked the mandate for large private employers.
- Biden v. Missouri: Upheld the mandate for health care workers at federally funded facilities.
Final Revocation of the Vaccine Mandate
In May 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order formally rescinding the COVID vaccine mandate for federal employees and contractors. At the same time, he issued one revoking the COVID vaccination requirement for air travel.
In announcing the end of the vaccine mandate, the Biden administration said that it helped protect federal employees and that the federal government successfully achieved a 98% compliance rate among the federal workforce.
They also cited a 95% decline in the number of COVID related deaths since January 2021 and widespread use of the vaccine as reasons for ending it.
Conclusion
OPM is trying to definitively end what was such a polarizing policy for the federal workforce and one that the Trump administration considers one of “many harmful policies of the Biden-Harris Administration.”
For federal employees, this guidance offers some closure and a reaffirmation of personal medical privacy. For agencies, it sets a clear boundary: employment decisions must be free from pandemic-era biases and rooted in merit, not medical history.
But could a mandate like this happen again in the future? This was a concern raised by the Health Freedom Defense Fund when the vaccine mandate was formally repealed.
It wrote in a blog post:
…The Fifth Circuit observed in what looked like a throwaway line, that shortly there will be the lifting of all declarations of emergency and that the parties will have to deal with that.
What does that mean? It means that when the emergency declaration expires, the government will likely move for dismissal on the basis that the case is moot since federal employees are no longer subject to discipline for failing to get vaccinated. And it means that there will be no final answer, if the courts dismiss on that basis, which means that the federal government could always do it again the next time there is an epidemic. So, there would be no permanent answer on which federal employees could rely in refusing the next order that comes down the pike.
Since the Supreme Court did not rule on the matter and instead dismissed the cases challenging the mandate as moot after it was repealed, it raises the question as to whether this debate could conceivably arise again in the future.
