Big Bro: Michigan College To Track Students At All Times
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
You Cannot Make This Stuff Up
Digital
tyranny is more contagious than COVID-19 as Albion College announces
that all students will be tracked digitally, confined to the campus and
subject to specimen collection at any time. Students can be expelled for
violations. ⁃ TN Editor
Albion College, located in Albion,
Mich., is one of the first schools in the country to tackle contact
tracing. The school is working to create a “COVID-bubble” on campus, and
asking students stay within the school’s 4.5-mile perimeter for the
entire semester; if a student leaves campus, the app will notify the
administration, and the student could be temporarily suspended.
The
move comes as universities grapple with how to reopen safely amid the
ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Several schools including Harvard
University have shut down their campuses entirely, while the University
of California system will provide the majority of classes online with a
selection of hybrid options. Other schools, such as Boston University,
are resuming in-person learning with masks and social distancing
guidelines alongside virtual learning supplements for those who don’t
feel comfortable returning.
Albion’s reopening plan has
sparked blowback from students and parents who are expressing concern
about what they view as an invasion of privacy. A father of an Albion
student said that he is upset that he must choose between keeping his
daughter home from school or signing off on a university-sanctioned
“invasion of privacy.”
“The school wants my daughter to sign a form consenting to specimen collection and lab testing,” he told the Washington Free Beacon on condition of anonymity. “I have a ton of concern with that…. Why is the state of Michigan’s contact tracing not enough?”
Though
students are required to remain on campus, professors and
administrators are not. When asked about this potential loophole in its
“COVID-bubble,” the school declined to comment.
Rising
senior Andrew Arszulowicz said that he is upset with both the mandatory
use of the app and the manner in which students are being treated. “I
feel like I am being treated like a five-year-old that cannot be trusted
to follow rules,” Arszulowicz told the Free Beacon. “If the school believes masks work … why are we not allowed to leave if they work? It does not make sense to me.”
Albion
is planning to offer in-person learning only, and students who refuse
to comply with the contact-tracing program will be forced to defer for a
semester or a full school year.
Coronavirus testing
will be required upon arrival to campus. It’s unclear how many follow-up
tests the university will mandate throughout the 14-week semester, but
the results be stored on Albion’s tracking app.
Returning
students must also sign a form authorizing the disclosure of their test
results to the county, state, or “any other governmental entity as may
be required by law”—though the school told the Free Beacon that state and county officials are not collecting information from the app.
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