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