Juno News - August 30, 2022


Dr. Ponesse shreds campus mandates


Episode Stats

Length

1 minute

Words per Minute

177.0679

Word Count

279

Sentence Count

13


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Why is it that this idea of medical ethics, of academic ethics, have now been trumped by this
00:00:07.180 vaccine mandate, not just at Western, I think in this particular context with Western's booster
00:00:11.720 mandate, it's egregious beyond where other schools are, but in general? It's a good question. This is
00:00:17.640 the question. I don't think, though, that this mandate situation is trumping a broader culture
00:00:23.660 of academic freedom. You were right when you quoted Western's policy, but we have seen a slow,
00:00:30.420 I would say, sort of stricture of freedom in the academic community for many years prior to this.
00:00:36.860 And so when the freedom policy says that students are free to be curious, to think what they think,
00:00:43.840 to say what they think, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry, that is in some sense a
00:00:48.260 vestige from a former time. I think the culture on campus is much different. I actually spoke to a
00:00:53.000 student at the rally on Saturday who said that her professor said to the class,
00:00:59.580 I know there are dirty, unvaxxed students here. And that, from what I've heard from other students,
00:01:06.500 is not anomalous. It's more the rule than the exception to the rule. And that kind of ideology,
00:01:12.580 that kind of thinking is factoring into not only classroom dynamics, but also questions that
00:01:18.300 students are getting on their exams. So I think that academic freedom, there's a question about how
00:01:24.040 much of it there really is when it started to shift. And I don't think it's restricted just to
00:01:27.820 the COVID issue. But this COVID vaccination issue has just punctuated what I think has been
00:01:32.540 building slowly for a long time.