The Soul Readers: How College Administrators Became Arbiters of Religious Truth

CAMPUSES, United States—I never thought I’d spend my time studying the inner workings of university health services offices. But when you’re a parent who’s done the research, who’s seen what vaccines can do to children, you find yourself in strange places—like trying to understand how a 28-year-old administrator with a master’s in public health became the person who gets to decide if your kid’s religious beliefs are “sincere.”

Let me walk you through the absurdity.

The Setup

Across America, colleges and universities require students to receive a litany of vaccines before setting foot on campus. We’re not talking about one vaccine during an active epidemic—the scenario the Supreme Court addressed in 1905 when it decided Jacobson v. Massachusetts. We’re talking about 15, 20, sometimes more doses for diseases that aren’t remotely epidemic in most college towns.

But that’s a discussion for another day. Today, I want to focus on what happens when a student says: “My religious beliefs prevent m…