Continued from above...
Free and informed consent is a precondition for all medical treatments and procedures, including vaccination. For consent to be truly informed, the potential recipient must be proactively informed of all the observable and potential risks, side-effects, and dangers. And for consent to be truly free, the potential recipient must be made aware of all options, including the option to freely decline. Most importantly, this decision must be free of coercion, pressure, or threat of punishment.
For the first time in history, universities like our own are requiring experimental vaccination as a condition of attendance and employment.
The university’s threat of expulsion constitutes unjustifiable pressure, especially considering the vaccine’s experimental nature; this absolutely qualifies as an element of “duress,” “overreaching,” and “coercion.”
To make matters worse, we find ourselves in a position where those who wish to infringe upon our bodily autonomy have relieved themselves of the responsibility of even having to prove their scientific assertions. Instead, they’ve shifted the burden of proof onto us; we must conclusively demonstrate why their hypochondriacal impositions do not make sense, which is a total inversion of the normal process of scientific inquiry.
Rather than allow us to engage in the intimately personal and inherently subjective process of making our own risk-assessments concerning these novel injections, UChicago refuses to allow us to freely consent or decline. Instead, it treats us like lab rats.
The yes-men will try to interject that we can all apply for exemptions and disenroll from UChicago if denied, but this counterargument is as immoral as it is lousy.
First, universities across the country, including UChicago, have consistently announced their new COVID policies on a whim—not even leaving students the time or ability to create contingency plans. Second, choosing a college isn’t a game of plug-and-play. It’s a process that entails a significant investment of hard work, time, financial resources, and effort to find the right match.
To tell a student who has invested two or three years of hard work and over $100,000 in tuition to attend UChicago that he must suddenly find a way to transfer to a school in a different state—a school that might not even be able to properly accommodate his specific academic interests and career track—in the middle of his winter quarter is ludicrous.
We went along with these initial edicts for convenience’s sake, perhaps contending that compliance in the short term would mean a long-term return to normalcy.
We rationalized that after bearing one year of Zoom classes to “slow the spread,” we’d finally be able to enjoy the state-of-the-art research facilities, nerdy camaraderie, and beautiful campus we were attracted to when we first applied to UChicago.
If we got the vaccine, we thought we’d finally be able to take off our masks and breathe, sit in a classroom with our friends, hang out in our dorms, and go to parties.
Those who thought we’d be free to enjoy the normal college experience we so desperately wanted if we just got the first two vaccine doses were completely wrong. This isn’t over. It’s only just begun.
We’ve become lab rats in a perpetual war against a glorified flu—and there’s no end in sight. UChicago continues to defy scientific and moral standards, dehumanizing us in the process.
Clearly, this is not about saving lives. It’s about control. We will not be controlled.
Our demands are as follows:
1. We demand that the University of Chicago withdraw its unsafe, ineffective, unnecessary, inconsistent, and unethical vaccine and booster mandates.
2. We demand that the university name those responsible for creating and implementing its COVID decrees, especially with regards to vaccination. We also demand it name those responsible for reviewing and approving both medical and religious exemptions to vaccine and booster mandates.
3. We demand that the university make a public statement to all community members explaining why UCMC staff and BSD personnel are not required to receive boosters, but students and other university employees are.
4. Lastly, we call on all members of our university community to fight back. This mandate is wrong. Do not allow University President Paul Alivisatos’s administration to pretend otherwise.
Signed,
The 2021-2022 Editorial Board of the Chicago Thinker:
This Isn’t Just Bad Science—It’s Also Wildly Unethical
UChicago directly violates established medical ethics by coercing its community members into experimental vaccination.Free and informed consent is a precondition for all medical treatments and procedures, including vaccination. For consent to be truly informed, the potential recipient must be proactively informed of all the observable and potential risks, side-effects, and dangers. And for consent to be truly free, the potential recipient must be made aware of all options, including the option to freely decline. Most importantly, this decision must be free of coercion, pressure, or threat of punishment.
For the first time in history, universities like our own are requiring experimental vaccination as a condition of attendance and employment.
The university’s threat of expulsion constitutes unjustifiable pressure, especially considering the vaccine’s experimental nature; this absolutely qualifies as an element of “duress,” “overreaching,” and “coercion.”
To make matters worse, we find ourselves in a position where those who wish to infringe upon our bodily autonomy have relieved themselves of the responsibility of even having to prove their scientific assertions. Instead, they’ve shifted the burden of proof onto us; we must conclusively demonstrate why their hypochondriacal impositions do not make sense, which is a total inversion of the normal process of scientific inquiry.
Rather than allow us to engage in the intimately personal and inherently subjective process of making our own risk-assessments concerning these novel injections, UChicago refuses to allow us to freely consent or decline. Instead, it treats us like lab rats.
The yes-men will try to interject that we can all apply for exemptions and disenroll from UChicago if denied, but this counterargument is as immoral as it is lousy.
First, universities across the country, including UChicago, have consistently announced their new COVID policies on a whim—not even leaving students the time or ability to create contingency plans. Second, choosing a college isn’t a game of plug-and-play. It’s a process that entails a significant investment of hard work, time, financial resources, and effort to find the right match.
To tell a student who has invested two or three years of hard work and over $100,000 in tuition to attend UChicago that he must suddenly find a way to transfer to a school in a different state—a school that might not even be able to properly accommodate his specific academic interests and career track—in the middle of his winter quarter is ludicrous.
UChicago’s Booster Mandate Doesn’t End the Hysteria—It Enshrines It
For the past two academic years, we’ve endured mandatory weekly invasive COVID testing; a laundry list of restrictions on movement and socialization enforced by a suffocating surveillance-and-reporting apparatus; needless quarantines in dorm rooms, even after testing negative; lackluster online classes; barred access to countless campus amenities and resources, including libraries and gyms; and, now, vaccine and booster requirements with limited exemptions, all while footing the same $60,000+ in annual tuition.We went along with these initial edicts for convenience’s sake, perhaps contending that compliance in the short term would mean a long-term return to normalcy.
We rationalized that after bearing one year of Zoom classes to “slow the spread,” we’d finally be able to enjoy the state-of-the-art research facilities, nerdy camaraderie, and beautiful campus we were attracted to when we first applied to UChicago.
If we got the vaccine, we thought we’d finally be able to take off our masks and breathe, sit in a classroom with our friends, hang out in our dorms, and go to parties.
Those who thought we’d be free to enjoy the normal college experience we so desperately wanted if we just got the first two vaccine doses were completely wrong. This isn’t over. It’s only just begun.
We’ve become lab rats in a perpetual war against a glorified flu—and there’s no end in sight. UChicago continues to defy scientific and moral standards, dehumanizing us in the process.
Clearly, this is not about saving lives. It’s about control. We will not be controlled.
Our demands are as follows:
1. We demand that the University of Chicago withdraw its unsafe, ineffective, unnecessary, inconsistent, and unethical vaccine and booster mandates.
2. We demand that the university name those responsible for creating and implementing its COVID decrees, especially with regards to vaccination. We also demand it name those responsible for reviewing and approving both medical and religious exemptions to vaccine and booster mandates.
3. We demand that the university make a public statement to all community members explaining why UCMC staff and BSD personnel are not required to receive boosters, but students and other university employees are.
4. Lastly, we call on all members of our university community to fight back. This mandate is wrong. Do not allow University President Paul Alivisatos’s administration to pretend otherwise.
Signed,
The 2021-2022 Editorial Board of the Chicago Thinker:
