Now that students have returned to college campuses all across the country, professors in conservative states are having political battles with their pupils over COVID safety protocols including vaccines and masks.
Current Events
In a concerted effort to combat the coronavirus crisis, thousands of universities in the US have instituted vaccine and mask mandates. The new rule at many universities from coast to coast is that students MUST be vaccinated and MUST wear a mask on campus at all times — or else find some other school to attend.
However, in Republican-led states such as Florida, Texas, and Georgia, the rules are extremely different. Professors are not allowed to discuss vaccines, are not allowed to require students to wear a mask, are not permitted to ask a student with COVID-like symptoms to leave the classroom, and can be fired for violating any of the aforementioned rules. Or, in other words, college campuses within these states have forced professors to make the extremely difficult decision to either teach an unmasked/unvaccinated class and risk contracting COVID — or get fired!
When Matthew Boedy, an associate professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia, attempted to skirt the rules by repeatedly telling students he was vaccinated and intended to be masked at all times, very few students took the hint. In fact, more than two-thirds of the first-year students in his writing class showed up unmasked.
“It seems like a repeat [of 2020],” said Professor Michael Atzmon of the University of Michigan regarding the health risks on college campuses in conservative states. “On the one hand, we have the vaccine. On the other hand, we have Delta.”
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“As outbreaks bloom from illegal student parties and the virus spreads through the dorms, colleges are the new meatpacking plants.” – The New York Times
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One very brave professor at the University of Georgia refused to allow the political ignorance of his state’s governor to put his health in jeopardy.
Irwin Bernstein, an 88-year-old psychology professor, came out of retirement and returned to the University of Georgia to teach this fall. However, when a student flat out refused to wear a mask after repeated requests to put one on, Bernstein quit his job on the spot and walked out of the classroom and immediately back into retirement.
“I had risked my life to defend my country while in the Air Force. I was not willing to risk my life to teach a class with an unmasked student,” Professor Bernstein said.
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“I am a professor at a public Texas university. Most of my students show up to class masked, but a handful do not. I wouldn’t call it an emotional hellscape, but it’s psychologically fraught. The students who go unmasked are declaring themselves in a way that would have been hidden before. And their self presentation has an effect on how I see them, even though I know I shouldn’t let it.” – Anonymous professor, Dallas, TX
New York Times: The American College Health Association recommends vaccination requirements for all on-campus higher education students for the fall semester. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends face coverings, regardless of vaccine status, for indoor public spaces in areas where the rate of infection is high. But this is not how it has worked out on more than a few campuses. More than 1,000 colleges and universities have adopted vaccination requirements for at least some students and staff, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. In an indication of how political vaccination has become, the schools tend to be clustered in states that voted for President Biden in the last election. But at some campuses, particularly in Republican-led states with high rates of contagion — like the state systems in Georgia, Texas and Florida — vaccination is optional and mask wearing, while recommended, cannot be enforced. Professors are… Read more »