Juno News - Dr. Ponesse shreds campus mandates

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.

Juno News - August 30, 2022