GSU students and staff held a protest Monday in favor of mask and vaccine mandates.
Martha Dalton / WABE
Students, professors, and other workers at Georgia colleges and universities are ramping up pressure on state officials to require vaccines and masks on college campuses.
Chapters of United Campus Workers at the University of Georgia and Georgia State University held demonstrations recently to push the universities to act without approval from the Board of Regents, which sets policy for the University System of Georgia. The protests came after some USG employees resigned due to the lack of a mandate. One GSU professor was fired for refusing to teach without a mask requirement.
Currently, the system encourages vaccines and masks but doesn’t require either one. A GSU graduate student named Julia (who didn’t want to give her last name) said both should be mandated. She teaches labs of 50 students.
“It feels like I’m being forced to go into a classroom and risk my health and risk my well-being to teach these classes and this is all so entirely preventable that it makes me just so frustrated with the system that they would not protect us when it’s so easy to do so,” she said.
Some students and campus workers at Georgia State University demonstrated Monday to urge new president Brian Blake to implement vaccine and mask mandates at the school. (Martha Dalton/WABE)
GSU’s chapter of the UCW held its protest outside the student center where new university President Brian Blake was holding a meet and greet with students.
“[Blake] wants to keep the campus safe, I think, so we want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he has the ability to make a decision for our campus, for our students,” said GSU Anthropology professor Cassandra White.
GSU had no comment.
White said the university system should follow guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which say masks should be worn indoors.
“I’ve had students tell me that they have relatives who have an autoimmune disorder so they’re worried about coming to campus, but academic advisors will tell them, ‘No, you have to come,’ not giving them options,” White said.
The university system doesn’t seem likely to require masks or vaccines. A spokesperson issued the following statement about the protests:
“The University System of Georgia and its leaders remain committed to keeping our campus communities healthy and safe. This is a responsibility we take very seriously. Just today [Monday] we announced up to $200 well-being credit for all employees who get vaccinated. We continue to work closely with the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) as we have since the pandemic began and we strongly encourage everyone to wear a mask or face covering while inside campus facilities.
“Also, COVID-19 vaccines offer safe, effective protection. USG’s 26 public colleges and universities have directly administered thousands of vaccine doses, and continue to help faculty, staff, and students get vaccinated either on campus or with a local provider. This summer, USG also made vaccines available to all students, including incoming students, at 15 sites across the state. While we urge vaccination for everyone, we recognize it is an individual decision to receive one and not required to be on our campuses.”
Gov. Brian Kemp, who picks the Regents, said mandating vaccines and masks on campus would just cause division.
“If people want to wear the mask, wear the mask … but also know that there’s a lot of people that have been vaccinated who don’t want to wear a mask anymore and to me, we shouldn’t be fighting about these issues,” he said. “It’s causing people’s blood pressure to go up. We need to continue to educate and advocate for people getting the vaccine.”
