DULUTH – A former professor at Lake Superior College who said he was fired in part for not following state COVID-19 mandates is suing Gov. Tim Walz and leadership at the community college where he had taught since the 1990s.
Russell Stewart, 60, filed a federal lawsuit last week, also naming four of the college’s administrators, including President Patricia Rogers. His goal is to get his job back and an acknowledgment that his constitutional rights were violated, according to court documents.
In the waning months of 2021, Walz said that government employees must be vaccinated or test weekly for COVID-19, a ruling that included the approximately 15,000 faculty and staff at Minnesota State’s dozens of colleges and universities. Stewart said in court documents that he lost his job in 2022 because he didn’t want a vaccine that had had limited testing and did not want to “subject himself to the humiliating ritual of providing bodily fluids and medical information” on a state-mandated cycle.
He was first put on unpaid leave and not allowed on the Duluth campus in September 2021 — an update he passed along to his students in an email. In it, he said he wasn’t opposed to vaccines in general, but found the policy to be “unlawful” and “arbitrary.” He said it violated medical autonomy.
“I refuse to be coerced into something that violates fundamental rights,” he wrote.
Stewart said he was later told that the email violated the school’s policy about messaging students about personal political beliefs. It was, in part, why he was terminated.
In a statement, Lake Superior College said the health and safety of its faculty, staff and students is its top priority.
“And we always adhere to the policies set forth by the State of Minnesota,” a spokesman said in an email.
