State universities punish students for refusing COVID compliance protocols

In Wednesday’s Detroit Free Press, it was revealed that the University of Michigan is deactivating the MCards of 375 students, making it impossible for them to enter campus buildings. The school requires regular COVID-19 testing and has systems in place that remind students after three weeks that they need to schedule one immediately. If those reminders are ignored, the school turns to more drastic steps to enforce compliance. The issue will surely raise questions about potential rights violations.

For a lot of students, the testing comes with serious downsides and little benefit. Adults under 25 rarely experience anything more than mild symptoms consistent with light flu or the common cold. Between 30 and 40 percent of cases show no symptoms at all. Research published in December in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that asymptomatic carriers pose little transmission risk, at least at the household level. Many students are able to weigh the potential they could fail a PCR or rapid response test, even without symptoms, the resulting consequence of shouldering the mental burden of forced quarantine that would follow, and decide that it is not worth it.

Keweenaw Report reached out to Michigan Tech for clarification of its policy and received the following statement.

Since classes began in the fall, Michigan Tech has performed more than 17,000 COVID-19 tests. About two-thirds of these tests, more than 11,000, have been surveillance tests. These ongoing tests help the University monitor for a community-level outbreak of COVID-19. A critical aspect to the success of surveillance testing is the willingness of the community to participate. Our response rate from students to requests that they be tested has been at acceptable levels to ensure we have a good read on any potential spread.

Students with on campus courses are required to complete the daily symptom tracker in order to access the online learning platform (Canvas). Students can be held accountable to our COVID-19 related protocols via our student code of conduct; however, we are fortunate that the majority of our community has been responsive and committed with our safety and testing protocols.

With a student body over 7,000 and around 17,000 tests completed, it is clear that Tech is not doing a weekly schedule like in Ann Arbor, but it is also restricting access to necessary services like Canvas based on compliance with certain policies. A self-completed COVID symptom tracker is far less intrusive compared to mandatory testing.