Georgia Public Universities Protest For Tougher COVID-19 Rules

ATLANTA, GA — Faculty and students from at least 17 public universities around Georgia – including the University of Georgia, the University of North Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State University – are on Monday beginning a weeklong series of demonstrations demanding tougher COVID-19 safety measures, namely immediate mask and vaccine mandates.

The University System of Georgia currently does not require anyone on its campuses or in its buildings to wear masks and get the COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, the USG has told its universities that they are not allowed to require masks or vaccines, following the lead of Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican lawmakers. This is not the case for K-12 schools, which can make their own policies on mask mandates.

Students and faculty plan to gather at different times of the day throughout the week for scheduled protests at USG campuses in Atlanta, Albany, Augusta, Athens, Savannah, Columbus, and other locations, according to a report in the Athens Banner-Herald. Organizers stress that the protests are not a “walk-out” or “teach-in”, and all classes will continue as scheduled. If the protests are categorized as “strikes”, which are illegal in Georgia, any faculty participants could be fired.

Matthew Boedy, president of the Georgia Conference of the American Association of University Professors and associate professor at the University of North Georgia, emailed USG Acting Chancellor Teresa MacCartney last week about the plan for protests.

“The USG and its Regents have ignored the [federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], the state’s large cadre of public health professors, and what I am sure have been many private pleas from university administrators,” Boedy wrote, as reported by the Banner-Herald. “We will not sit idly by and watch this hellscape anymore.”

In the past few weeks, faculty groups at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, and the University of North Georgia passed resolutions asking for mask and vaccine mandates, and the right of individual schools to mandate COVID policies. Numerous faculty groups have also sent letters and petitions to the Board of Regents asking for mandates and more decision-making autonomy, but those pleas have thus far not resulted in any changes.

On Thursday, Acting Chancellor MacCartney said that the university system is acting “in alignment” with Governor Kemp, who appoints the board of regents.

“Gov. Kemp said last week at the Capitol that he believes mandates cause division on campus and does not support them,” she said, as reported by the Associated Press. “He expects the university system to continue to focus on getting everyone who’s eligible vaccinated and to educate and advocate about why it’s so important.”

MacCartney also promised “consequences” for faculty “not following through and doing their jobs,” and said that “attacks” on campus administration will not affect how decisions are made.

A number of professors around the state have already resigned in protest, or taken matters into their own hands.

Before the fall semester started, University of North Georgia lecturers Cornelia Lambert and Lorraine Buchbinder both quit due to what they deemed insufficient safety measures. Lambert told the Washington Post that the university denied her request to teach her courses virtually. “I was going to feel like fraud sitting there and talking to my students about public health while being paid by an institution that’s ignoring public health,” Lambert, who has an immunocompromised husband, told The Post.

University of Georgia psychology professor Irwin Bernstein, who is 88 years old and suffers from Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease, told The Post he quit after his first day of teaching when a student refused to cover her nose with her mask.

Other professors, like University of Georgia math professor Joseph Fu, is requiring students to wear masks in his classroom, and recently told CNN he is willing to be fired over the issue.

A university spokesperson told The Post that the school, which is not allowed to require masks, has administered nearly 25,000 vaccines at the University Health Center. Meanwhile, the Georgia conference of the American Association of University Professors counted more than 4,400 reported cases of COVID-19 on public campuses during the month of August. The state of Georgia is experiencing a wave of COVID infections. On Sept. 12, Georgia posted a 7-day average of 7,124 COVID cases, according to data from the New York Times.

Despite a large and coordinated effort to get the Board of Regents to change their policy, Boedy is not particularly optimistic. “They’ve made it clear that there are no number of cases, hospitalizations or deaths too high for the Board of Regents to change their mind,” he told USA Today.

Here is a list of schools expected to participate, as reported by WTOC News:

• University of Georgia
• University of North Georgia
• Augusta University
• Georgia Southern University - Statesboro & Savannah campuses
• Kennesaw State University
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Georgia State University
• Columbus State University
• University of West Georgia
• Georgia College & State University
• Clayton State University
• Dalton State College
• Georgia Gwinnett College
• Albany State University
• South Georgia State College
• Georgia Southwestern University
• Savannah State University