Across America in 2020, draconian restrictions were imposed in the name of countering coronavirus at just about every university, even though most college students, being relatively young and healthy, have been at very little risk of serious sickness or death from coronavirus.

Some people said “no thanks” to paying universities to harass and demean them with such restrictions, choosing, instead, to withdraw from or not enter college. Indeed, college enrollment in America is down over six percent — a loss of nearly a million students — since the Fall of 2019 semester that preceded the coronavirus scare. Other people grudgingly put up with the situation and tried to take advantage of opportunities they could find to experience some of the freedom universities were working hard to deny.

In the spring of 2021, many universities began announcing their plans to mandate students take experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots. Some people hoped that the shots mandates would come with the permanent lifting of restrictions. But, at many universities it turned out to be just another requirement added on the pile.

Those shots mandates implemented by the fall of 2021 semester have been followed up at some of these universities with new mandates that the students take booster shots as well — booster shots that even European Union regulators and the World Health Organization are now advising against. The initial shots have proven ineffective and dangerous contrary to the insistence of politicians, big money media, and college administrators. The case for boosters of more of the same has become ludicrous.

Even if the shots were the miracle drug that was promised, in a free society the choice to take or not take this or other medical treatments would be left to individuals, not mandated. Over the last nearly two years of coronavirus crackdown, however, America has transitioned substantially farther from that free society ideal. Fortunately, some state and local governments have resisted this movement, and others that went along with it early on have reversed course, at least in part. This has led to the lifting of many restrictions, and the blocking of others including shots mandates, at some government-controlled universities. But, for many college students the coronavirus crackdown remains intense and threatens to grow with the addition of new mandates such as the mandate to take booster shots of the experimental coronavirus vaccines.

Students, as well as professors and other employees, at universities across America who want to challenge one of the latest additions to the coronavirus crackdown in higher education would do well to consider the strong arguments presented in a January 11 editorial by the editorial board of Chicago Thinker. The editorial presents a case against the University of Chicago’s recently announced mandate that students and employees, already required to have taken the initial coronavirus shots, take booster shots as well. The editorial board, comprised of University of Chicago students, presents in the editorial many well-reasoned arguments against the new mandate.

The editorial begins with the following statement before proceeding into detailed argument against the new mandate:

Per the University of Chicago’s newly announced booster mandate, all students and employees must obtain a booster shot by January 24. Those who do not comply will be barred from campus and restricted from attending in-person classes, among other activities.

This booster mandate is demonstrably unsafe, ineffective, unnecessary, inconsistent, and unethical. We’ve struggled beneath UChicago’s draconian COVID decrees for years, but the university’s booster mandate reaches a new height of absurdity. 

You can continue reading the Chicago Thinker editorial here.

Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.