If you decide that the COVID vaccine is right for you, I don’t stand in your way. However, what I cannot tolerate is the despotic, taxpayer-funded universities who want to force all of their students to get the vaccine whether they want it or not. From the East Coast to the West, many universities are requiring that students take the vaccine or not return to campus.
This should not come as a big surprise to anyone who pays attention to higher education. Universities are pockets of totalitarianism accountable to no one. They stand as opposed to genuine liberty as they are to Donald Trump. Although these schools were once thought to be America’s foremost hubs of free speech, they are also the place where political correctness started and still thrives.
Requiring vaccination of all students is popular among university administrators, who sometimes exempt faculty. Colleges copy each other in demanding that every student be vaccinated with virtually no exceptions. Yet, if these schools ever hope to fulfill their stated goal of giving students autonomy of the mind, how can they deny their students autonomy of the body? Why should students be required to introduce a foreign substance into their body with no regard for the wishes of the student?
In Florida, the pro-Trump Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a ban on COVID vaccine mandates, forcing a university there to reverse its requirement. Although conservatives should consider this a big victory, we must not forget the college students elsewhere who must either roll up their sleeves for shots or face expulsion. Some students are responding with protests, as was seen at Rutgers University.
Again, I do not want to stand in the way of anyone who thinks the vaccine is a good fit for them. As an American, I respect your right to make that choice. However, I cannot fathom why these universities would force vaccines on the people least likely to need them. If universities really want to force their students to make healthy choices, why not force them to attend classes without trigger warnings? That would be a refreshing change.
