Thousands of students across the country are already in quarantine over COVID-19 exposures. More than 500 universities have said they will require coronavirus vaccination and masks this year.
However, professors at dozens of universities with less stringent health requirements are using protests, petitions and even resignations to press their demands for tighter coronavirus prevention methods. Much of the protest is coming in states where Republicans politicians, have fiercely opposed vaccine or mask requirements, leaving universities with few tools to combat the spread of the virus.
A University of Georgia professor resigned August 31, 2021 after a student in his class refused to wear a mask. Irwin Bernstein, 88, was teaching a psychology seminar when a female student allegedly arrived at the class without a mask. She was told to retrieve one from the advising office and offered a mask by another student, which she reportedly did not wear over her nose. Bernstein reportedly asked the student again to pull up her mask, but when she refused, he resigned from his teaching role and left the classroom.
“At that point I said that whereas 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 during this Pandemic,” Bernstein said in a statement to the Red and Black, the school’s independent student newspaper. “I then resigned my retiree-rehire position.”
At Georgia College and State University, Dr. Meridith Styer asked a rhetoric class to wear masks because she had a family member for whom COVID could be fatal, she said one student declined. Styer, who holds a doctorate in rhetoric and political culture, resigned last week over her institution’s response to the incident in her class. “I am leaving because of USG policy and the way it’s being enforced on Georgia College’s campus,” she said. “The USG’s policies caused me to make this choice and I would make the same choice to put family above my job again.”
Jeremy Fischer, a tenured ethics professor at the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), has resigned his position after expressing his disagreement with the school’s COVID-19 policy. Fischer, who has been at the school for seven years, posted his resignation letter, which he addressed to the university president, provost, college dean and department chair, on Twitter. “We know what it takes to protect community health and very likely save lives, and we have the ability to do it; what is lacking is the collective willingness to do so,” he wrote. “And I find myself compelled to consider whether my continued relationship with UAH might render me complicit in a moral atrocity. Therefore, I have decided to resign my position as associate professor of philosophy, effective immediately.”
A video posted on Twitter showed an absolutely packed Virginia Tech footballs stadium with over 65 thousand screaming fans. It is tiring to have to keep documenting such insane super spreader events. Colleges just don’t give a damn about mitigating the spread of the virus. College football is a huge money maker. Bling always trumps public health. It is no longer a matter of if you might be infected, but when.