Hey there, it is the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Danielle Kertzleven, I cover demographics and culture.

And I'm Carrie Johnson, the National Justice Correspondent.

And we have a special episode today.

This is The Docket, our ongoing series where we look at the big legal questions of the

day.

Today, we are talking about something very much in the news.

We're talking about vaccine mandates.

As yet another wave of COVID-19 spreads throughout the U.S., we've seen businesses, cities,

and parts of the federal government begin to require proof of vaccination.

And with that comes a debate over not just the ethics of vaccination, but also legality.

Whether it's legal to require vaccination to do any number of things, like get a job or

go to a sporting event or a restaurant.

And to talk about this, we have legal expert Carrie Johnson, but also another expert, who

have you brought, Carrie?

Yeah, we have law professor Lindsay Wiley from American University here with us today.

She directs the Health Law and Policy Program there, high professor Wiley.

Thanks for inviting me to join you.

Oh, we're happy to have you.

And I guess the best place to start is with kind of a simple question.

Is it legal to require vaccinations for COVID-19?

I think there may be a very old Supreme Court case about this from all the way back to 1905.

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