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Anaximenes

Jan 14 • 30 tweets • 5 min read

Let's have a discussion about "community compacts". There has been a lot of confusion as to why students at prestigious schools have been very silent about the ridiculous and arbitrary COVID policies they are subjected to.
This might shed some light on that. Buckle up. 🧵 1/25

This comes from a cursory search of Ivy league schools. I was able to find similar "community compacts" for 5 of the 8 Ivies. It is overwhelmingly likely that such measures exist at pretty much every other high-status university. All of the compacts are shared at the end. 2/25

What is a "community compact?". Simply put, it is a contract that all students, graduate students, and professionals are required to sign if they want to be on campus. It is completely, 100% binding, and there is absolutely no room for noncompliance. 3/25

These were drummed up by university administrators with zero input from students. From what I know, there has been no push-back whatsoever from student unions, but this is pretty par for the course. 4/25

What is in these "community compacts"? As they relate to COVID, here are some common traits: 5/25

- Complete compliance with vaccine and booster mandates. If a medical or religious exemption is granted, you are buried under a mountain of restrictions. Most also include the flu shot. 6/25

- Students must submit to as many tests as the university admin deems appropriate.

For example, Yale was demanding 5 tests for students returning to campus after travelling - even domestically - for the holidays. That is not a typo. 7/25

- Mandatory compliance with symptom trackers and contract tracing "teams". In most compacts, you are required to install apps on your phone to ensure said compliance. 8/25

- Mandatory compliance with mask mandates, which in most universities implementing these things, includes not being allowed to have water/coffee in class. This is, as usual, on top of vaccine and booster mandates. 9/25

- Students are required to not host any off-campus gatherings that violate these protocols. 10/25

- Noncompliance is encouraged to be reported to campus compliance lines. Most universities have established these snitch lines and have signs up encouraging such reporting. 11/25

Violations of these arbitrary rules are often subject to a "panel review". Students are quite literally not allowed to appeal their case. You can look at Penn for that. 12/25

Violations can range from removal from on campus activities, to forced quarantines, to expulsion. That explains why students are fearful of noncompliance, even if "speaking one's mind about the university's COVID plan" isn't necessarily included in the compact. 13/25

They are able to ban free expression without banning free expression, using fear of the consequences of noncompliance as a blunt object to do so. In doing so, coupled with the implementation of snitch lines, they prevent a lot of discussion in between students. 14/25

Most of these students understand that their future careers are built or broken based on their time at these schools. Risking their futures - especially given the fact that most university admins are unshakable in their faith in COVID restrictions - is downright foolish. 15/25

This is me hypothesizing, but I can only assume that if you are a student at one of these schools, you probably understand that you speaking up will not change anything. It is all risk, zero reward. 16/25

And so they feel compelled not to speak out. It is dangerous, and because of that, damn near impossible to gauge what the overall sentiment is. I know some Ivy league students and while they are completely against the restrictions, they know of no one else who is too. 17/25

These schools have created an ecosystem where the only acceptable social trait is that of blind compliance to unaccountable administrative bureaucrats. They are shredding their accountability in blind adherence to COVID monomania. 18/25

The people implementing such arbitrary and unnecessary measures are doing so because they think it is the only way to preserve the university's image. They have seen how "COVID outbreaks at x" are treated by the news. 19/25

Especially considering the fact that there are scandals coming out related to some of these schools conspiring to limit student financial aid. These admins want to be out of the news as much as possible.

theroot.com/16-colleges-in… 20/25

And since these schools have so many people clamouring to get in, they know they can get away with it. More than, say, a typical state school where students might feel less pressure to avoid going to greener pastures. 21/25

The thing that DOES affect these schools, of course, is getting that sweet sweet tuition money. The average Ivy league tuition in 20-21 was $56,746. Even a small increase in people deferring or choosing against these schools can be a major financial hit. 22/25

With that in mind, it makes perfect sense as to why all these schools are saying that only the first few weeks are going to be online. 23/25

If they came out and said the truth - that the whole semester will be offered over Zoom - they can't collect as much as they can with the promise of in-person. Too many students would say "fuck that" and go to a school offering an actual education. 24/25

It will, of course, be far simpler to take all that tuition money, lock students in, and THEN say "oh well, the situation changed so we're gonna do online for the whole semester".

This WILL happen. I will be shocked if it doesn't. 25/25