Courtesy of Jay Bhattacharya, the University of Michigan’s policy for dealing with the discovery of an unclean SARS-CoV-2-infected 18-year-old in a dorm shared with healthy 18-year-olds:
Let’s consider Pat Studymuch, a U-M freshman. He/she/ze/they lives in a single room amidst other 18-year-olds whose risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 is minimal. Where should he/she/ze/they go?
Science says “Go back to the parents and elderly grandparents” (in the “permanent residence”). But if removing an infected 18-year-old from a group of 18-year-olds and pushing him/her/zir/them into a community of older people is good, wouldn’t it be even better for contagious students to be sent to quarantine in nursing homes?
This is clearly ridiculous. Given that the policy is to go home if you have a car and are within a day’s drive, there are bound to be enough exceptions that the school really should come up with a better quarantine plan. While the idea of being stuck with a roommate who has covid really sucks, there are plenty of cases of cohabitants not getting covid, and given that COVID has an incubation period, by the time it’s detected, the roommate probably either has it or he doesn’t.
I was more than a day’s drive from my parents when I was living in a single room as a grad student at UofM student housing; I would have been unable to comply with this policy.
I also don’t remember the University attempting to police my off-campus behavior except for the minimum of avoiding criminal convictions (and that was later debated). I understand (sort of) them saying “you must leave University Housing”, but what business is it of theirs if I ended up in a homeless shelter?
And there are also many international students.
How are students expected to keep up with their classwork (remote learning, I guess) or teaching responsibilities (I was responsible for some EECS labs)?
Would I have been entitled to a refund for my rent and phone bill for the days when I was not permitted to enter University Housing?
I’m kind of at a loss for words.
Yeah, if they’re going to have a policy, they should create a quarantine ward.
Apparently this disease is doing something nothing else has been able to do: get old professors and emeriti to finally retire.
This is clearly a very serious issue: I propose we put our best players on the field to offer advice and save lives. Here are my designees: 1) Kamala Harris (what an amazing job she has done on the southern border); 2) John Fetterman (a very impressive guy, who accomplished so much while living in his parents basement); 3) docter fauci (he is #science…need we say more).
“I also don’t remember the University attempting to police my off-campus behavior…”
The University making any recommendations of any kind? No — the horror! That might impinge upon my freedumb.
Freedumb! Freedumb!
During my undergrad studies the university certainly attempted to reel us in, e.g. town-gown relations, drinking at football games, etc.
Mike: Let’s celebrate the wise administrators at Oberlin College who told the students what to do when they were off campus in and around a local merchant.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/us/oberlin-bakery-lawsuit.html
The incident that started the dispute unfolded in November 2016, when a student tried to buy a bottle of wine with a fake ID while shoplifting two more bottles by hiding them under his coat, according to court papers.
That altercation led to two days of protests; several hundred students gathered in front of the bakery, accusing it of having racially profiled its customers, according to court papers.
The lawsuit filed by Gibson’s contended that Oberlin had defamed the bakery when the dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, and other members of the administration took sides in the dispute by attending the protests, where fliers, peppered with capital letters, urged a boycott of the bakery and said that it was a “RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT OF RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.”
In the spring, a three-judge panel of the Ohio Court of Appeals confirmed the jury’s finding, after a six-week trial, that Oberlin was liable for libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress and intentional interference with a business relationship — that it had effectively defamed the business by siding with the protesters. The original jury award was even higher, at $44 million in punitive and compensatory damages, which was reduced by a judge. The latest amount consists of about $5 million in compensatory damages, nearly $20 million in punitive damages, $6.5 million in attorney’s fees and almost $5 million in interest.
In its ruling, the Court of Appeals agreed that students had a right to protest. But the court said that the flier and a related student senate resolution — which said that the store had a history of racial profiling — were not constitutionally protected opinion.
After the 2019 jury award against Oberlin, Carmen Twillie Ambar, the college president, said that the case was far from over and that “none of this will sway us from our core values.” The college said then that the bakery’s “archaic chase-and-detain policy regarding suspected shoplifters was the catalyst for the protests.”
And don’t forget the lawsuit after the lawsuit… https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2023/08/08/oberlin-sues-insurers-over-settlement-bakery-case
Last fall, with its latest appeal denied, Oberlin paid out $36.6 million to Gibson’s Bakery.
Now The Chronicle-Telegram reports that Oberlin filed a lawsuit earlier this year against Lexington Insurance Company of New York; United Educators Insurance of Bethesda, Md.; Mount Hawley Insurance Company of Peoria, Ill.; and StarStone Specialty Insurance Company of Cincinnati. The newspaper notes that Oberlin claims that the insurers refused “to honor promises they made in their respective policies to protect the interests of Oberlin College.”
According to details from the lawsuit, first reported by the local newspaper, Oberlin argues that “the defendant insurers have failed to pay a penny toward the $36,590,572.48 sum that Oberlin paid the Gibson plaintiffs. They also have failed to pay for the full cost of Oberlin’s appeals, which were pursued at the behest of the insurers in order to reduce their collective exposure.”
In court documents, Oberlin alleges that insurers have traded blame for who is on the hook for the settlement payout and have tried to “avoid their coverage obligations by attempting to shift responsibility for the Gibson lawsuit.”
Bwahaha, Oberlin got its just desserts!
Did anyone in the administration get fired for this mess? There is so little accountability these days for the wokes.
Thank god the justice system worked in that case.
German: What do you mean “worked”? As you note, the folks responsible for the massive loss of endowment funds have probably gone on to ever more illustrious and highly paid DEI jobs. Let’s suppose that Oberlin does force the insurance companies to pay. In that case, the cost will be shifted to buyers of insurance policies, e.g., other universities, who will just pass on their increased costs to customers (ordinary families).
The NYT names two of the people who got Oberlin into this mess … Meredith Raimondo and Carmen Twillie Ambar. The latter continues to get paid as president of the college, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Twillie_Ambar (he/she/ze/they wasn’t around at the time of the incident, but seems to have continued to believe the college acted righteously and, presumably, obstructed settlement).
https://oberlinreview.org/25680/news/former-dos-meredith-raimondo-leaves-oberlin/ cost Oberlin or the insurers over $40 million (the funds paid out plus legal fees). She got paid for five addition years by Oberlin and now gets a paycheck as “vice president for student affairs at Oglethorpe University”. The latter article:
“Dr. Raimondo was a much beloved and highly respected teacher who taught queer studies and classes about AIDs and other health epidemics,” said Professor of Comparative American Studies Wendy Kozol.
OMG as a Michigan grad… embarrassing. The idea that the average American, at their own cost, would pay to quarantine themselves, is silly.
They do say they have limited isolation wards available if you are approved
I’m guessing a nursing home might be ok if you can find a single room and bathroom you clean yourself. But I’d guess those to be in short supply