Three UMass Amherst students have been suspended for not wearing face masks when they recently posed for a photo at an outdoor off-campus party. No, I’m not kidding.
Some mask fascist sent the photo, which was spotted on social media, to the university administration. The woke leftists first punished the three college freshman, all of them young women, for allegedly violating Covid-19 health guidelines by restricting them to online learning only.
Then, the students were told they were suspended. They lost all of their credits, are not allowed to take the final exams, which effectively fails them in all their courses, and their parents will not be reimbursed for the $16,000-per-semester cost of tuition. Moreover, adding insult to injury, the students have been told they must reapply if they want to go back to UMass Amherst. The university has effectively destroyed their academic lives.
UMass Amherst should be ashamed of itself. This is medical fascism masquerading as public health policy. First and most importantly, university officials have no business getting involved in the personal behavior of their students. The three UMass women went to an off-campus party held outside on a Saturday. In other words, their activities were not conducted on campus grounds or during the school week. It was done on their private time at an off-site location. The university is essentially claiming they own the bodies of these women, and can therefore control and dictate their behavior at all times and all places. It’s not only pure misogyny, but a form of academic authoritarianism.
It’s also blatant hypocrisy. When the UMass Amherst men’s hockey team recently won the national championship there was a huge parade and celebration on campus. Photos show many of the players and students who were celebrating and partying were not wearing masks—in direct violation of university Covid-19 policy. Nothing happened to anyone, not even a slap on the wrist. The reason: money—big money. The men’s hockey team brings in considerable cash (and prestige) to the university. Hence, administrators deliberately turned a blind eye, showing the lie that they care about “public health and safety.”
Moreover, as revealed by Turtleboy, UMass Amherst President Marty Meehan himself just several weeks ago was photographed not wearing a mask with a university student who was also—yup—mask less. In other words, rules for thee but not me. The lack of consistency or a fair applicable standard is obvious to the point of absurdity. The outraged parents of the three ejected students now vow to get a lawyer and sue the university. I hope they do because they will win.
The entire scandal reveals the outrageous double-standard corroding not simply UMass Amherst but our entire society: If those three students were Black Lives Matter activists or were at some BLM protest or riot not wearing masks nothing would happen to them. For over a year, as the pandemic has gripped America, liberal elites have deliberately ignored that, while BLM thugs have been rioting, looting and burning, most of them never wear masks. No matter the massive size of the crowd or how closely squeezed together. In other words, when it comes to fighting for “racial justice” then Covid-19 protocols are irrelevant.
Yet, when three honor-roll, top-tier students, without a single blemish on their record, decide to take their masks off for a selfie at a party in which the nearest person is at least 20 feet away then the mask fascists decide to throw the book at them. No mercy. No warning. No probation. This is the very definition of liberal tyranny.
The big story of our time is not the coronavirus; rather, it is how our ruling elites have hijacked the virus to amass vast power and impose draconian social control. The irony is that wearing a mask outdoors is useless in preventing the spread of the coronavirus. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued updated guidelines on Covid-19. The CDC admits the new data shows that Covid is an aerosol virus, meaning it spreads through droplets in the air (not by physical or surface contact). This makes it devastating indoors. But outdoors the wind and the air itself pushes and blows the virus away. Unless you are nose-to-nose with someone, it is almost impossible to contract the virus outside. Those three students have a better chance of dying from the flu or pneumonia than Covid.
Hence, UMass Amherst’s mask policy is not only authoritarian and wrong. It is anti-science—and anti-human. We are destroying lives and precious liberties due to ceaseless fear-mongering and hysteria about Covid-19. Enough is enough.
-Jeffrey T. Kuhner is host of “The Kuhner Report” on WRKO AM-680 in Boston. His daily show airs 6:00-10:00 am EST. He can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.org
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