Professors at universities and colleges across the country are pushing back against plans to reopen campuses over concerns that they could be infected with the Chinese virus.
According to a report by the New York Times, professors at universities and colleges around the country have already announced that they will not return to campus this fall, even if their employer opens its campus for classes.
Many of the professors that have protested against plans to reopen campuses are in their 60s and 70s. Some have expressed concerns about campus reopenings because their age may make them particularly susceptible to the virus.
Dana Ward, 70, a professor of political studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, says that she will not return to campus until a vaccine for the virus is publicly available.
“Until there’s a vaccine, I’m not setting foot on campus,” Ward said. “Going into the classroom is like playing Russian roulette.”
Paul M. Kellermann, 62, a professor at Penn Stae, claimed that many of his colleagues share his concerns about returning to campus. “I shudder at the prospect of teaching in a room filled with asymptomatic superspreaders,” Kellerman wrote in a short statement.
Professor Anna Curtis of SUNY Cortland asked permission to teach remotely in the fall to avoid the risk of spreading the virus from the classroom to her 4-year-old son at home. The university denied her request.
“But that doesn’t happen until the sickness happens,” Curtis said. “It’s a parent penalty, and most of the time it’s the women doing the primary care.”
Breitbart News reported in May that the University of Notre Dame announced that they would reopen their campus in the fall. To avoid a second wave of the virus in the winter, Notre Dame officials announced that students would begin their semester on campus in August and complete it before Thanksgiving in November.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.
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