Former professor David Clements sues NMSU, claiming vindication on vaccines

LAS CRUCES — Much has changed since David Clements was fired from his tenure-track faculty job at New Mexico State University in 2021 for refusing to comply with COVID-19 campus policies.

Now he is suing the university for reinstatement, telling the Journal that since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. assumed the leadership of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, new information vindicates positions he took against vaccine and masking mandates.

Four years ago, the university required vaccinations or regular tests and masking by students and employees. Clements, an attorney who taught consumer and business law, refused to comply and disputed the legal and medical bases for the policies. He decried “forced injection” of new mRNA vaccines, which he regarded as experimental drugs.

As for masks, he told one class in a video he published on Rumble, “Whether you want to wear a mask in my class is between you and God,” despite NMSU policy and New Mexico public health directives mandating face masks in public spaces.

Clements denounced claims by federal and state health authorities about the safety of the vaccines or the benefits of masks. He also argued that testing methods used to identify the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus produced false positive results.

NMSU’s provost at the time, Carol Parker, said Clements’ refusal to follow university policies disrupted the academic environment and jeopardized public safety. “If one disagrees with the policy, they are free to work elsewhere,” she said.

By then, Clements had dined with Donald Trump and was a frequent guest on conservative podcasts and cable programs. After his parting with NMSU, Clements focused on podcasting, produced a documentary and toured the U.S. claiming the 2020 presidential election was rigged and advocated for people charged and convicted over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Today, President Trump is back in the White House. Under Kennedy’s leadership, the federal government has dropped COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women and called for individuals to consult a health provider before getting updated shots. The guidelines potentially affect access to vaccines and boosters for some people as well as the cost to patients.

Meanwhile, NMSU dropped its mask requirement in 2022 immediately after New Mexico did the same. By then, vaccination participation in New Mexico was widespread, and cases were declining as well as hospitalizations. The university no longer tracks the presence of COVID-19 on campus or requires vaccination for students and employees. Masks are optional. The university directs those who come down with COVID-19 to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and the advice of health providers.

In September, Clements filed a lawsuit in the state’s 3rd Judicial District against NMSU, the university’s regents and 15 anonymous defendants for breach of contract and claims of unfair or deceptive business practices.

The complaint cites actions taken by agencies under Kennedy’s authority this summer, including the replacement of a key vaccine advisory panel at the CDC with members selected by Kennedy; canceled nearly $500 million in mRNA vaccine research, the technology behind most COVID-19 vaccines; and restrictions on access to new COVID-19 vaccines by the Food and Drug Administration to senior citizens or people with underlying health issues.

Clements argues in the complaint that those policy moves reinforce questions he had raised about the university’s requirements, “which Defendants failed to investigate, demonstrating their willful disregard for evidence.” He claims that policies requiring him to participate in vaccinations, testing or wearing a mask violated his employment contract.

Further, his suit alleges NMSU tailored its mandates and messaging to seek funding under several COVID-related federal programs, which Clements alleges was a deceptive business practice.

The university declined to comment on the pending litigation. Earlier this month, NMSU’s attorneys asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that a two-year statute of limitations on contractual claims had passed and that it would be immune from claims that COVID-19 requirements violated “implied” terms of his contract.

The university also argues that Clements did not make a valid claim under the Unfair Trade Practices Act, which applies to the “sale of goods and services,” because he is a former employee challenging his termination, not a consumer of NMSU services.

In an interview, Clements, who is representing himself in the lawsuit, said the statute of limitations should be pre-empted under legal rules by what he presents as new evidence of fraud via Kennedy’s claims that the CDC had politicized medicine during the pandemic — claims strongly rejected by former leaders of that agency .

Further, Clements told the Journal in an interview he would present new evidence “that my firing was, in fact, pretextual — that there was a retaliatory motive to get rid of me because I stood up to then-President John Floros, appeared on the Tucker Carlson show, and they were loaded for bear to get rid of me. They actually violated their own policies by prematurely suspending me.”

Clements, a former prosecuting attorney and a Republican candidate for the state Legislature in 2014, remains a licensed attorney after defending himself against what he described as “six frivolous complaints and preliminary investigations to strip me of my license, purely related to my advocacy on medical integrity and election integrity.”

Clements said he had been “vindicated and validated” during the second Trump administration and that he hoped his litigation would further exonerate attorneys and clients who had been sanctioned and dismissed as “conspiracy theorists,” as dozens of cases claiming election fraud in 2020 and challenging COVID-19 health orders were tossed from courts across the country.

“I’m vindicated and validated now, but it has severely impacted my ability to take on clients,” Clements said. “Many attorneys are gun-shy in representing people on these cases because there is this unwritten rule that you don’t question the powers that be.”