'Without Merit': Federal Court Dismisses Oklahoma Challenge To Vaccine Mandate For National Guard

A federal judge in Oklahoma threw out a lawsuit filed by the state against the Department of Defense over its service-wide vaccine mandate, including the state's National Guard.

On Wednesday, District Judge Stephen Friot said Oklahoma's case was "without merit," and that the authority of the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, to set readiness standards through its COVID-19 vaccine mandate was well within the Pentagon's authority.

Contrasting the COVID inoculation to others required by the services, Friot said the vaccine mandate was hardly an overreach as alleged by Oklahoma, which saw members of its National Guard refuse the shot under state orders.

"Adding a tenth FDA-approved vaccine to the list of nine that all service members are already required to take would hardly amount to 'an enormous and transformative expansion [of the] regulatory authority' the Secretary of Defense already possesses," Friot wrote in his opinion.

Friot cited President George Washington’s example of requiring smallpox inoculations for his soldiers during the American Revolution. This, he argues, undercuts Oklahoma’s argument that the Pentagon was seeking a “transformative” set of authorities.

Oklahoma and the state National Guard’s refusal to comply with the Pentagon’s vaccination mandate set off a battle over who had the final say over state military forces.

After Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, ordered that the mandate not be enforced, Austin warned that any troops who refused would be denied their pay even when not under federal control. It also denied them the right to participate in regular drills.

In response, Stitt argued that it was his authority under Title 32 of the U.S. Code to set standards for the Guard when they are not federalized. He accused the Pentagon and Biden administration of undercutting these powers and sued to have the mandate for Guardsmen, as well as all federal employees, revoked.

Stitt was joined in his objections by the governors of five other GOP-led states, escalating the wider battle between Republican officials and the Biden administration over vaccination mandates for federal employees.