The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Regents protect some folks, just not those on campuses
The acting chancellor of the University System of Georgia, the oversight body for higher education in the state, reaffirmed Thursday that masks will remain optional on campuses despite rising COVID-19 rates and desperate pleas from parents and faculty for a mandate.
Echoing Gov. Brian Kemp, Teresa Maccartney said mask mandates cause divisions on campus, which is apparently a greater concern to her than the impact of no masks on campus — the threat of death for students, staff and their families amid this brutal fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Maccartney defended the mask-optional policy a day after the University of Georgia reported 505 new positive cases during a recent seven-day stretch.
The Board of Regents — maskless themselves during Maccartney’s presentation — has declined to insist on masks on Georgia’s public campuses, pushing professors to beg students to wear masks to protect their young children, their pregnant spouses or their elderly parents from the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19. Many faculty — including a father-to-be at Dalton State College who begins
every class with an ultrasound picture of his baby due next month — report some students still won’t comply.
An alarmed mother reached out to me from South Georgia. Her daughter, who suffers from a rare and dangerous autoimmune disorder, earned admission this year into a prestigious graduate program at the University of Georgia. The 21-year-old undergoes chemo every six months. She is vaccinated, but that may not be enough to ward off COVID19, which could kill her. She eats lunch alone in her car to avoid contact with maskless peers. She wears two medical-grade masks to class, where concerned professors have asked other students to mask up but 10 to 15 will not.
“This acceptance is a dream come true for her except for one thing. No mask mandate,” said her mother. “A mask mandate is the least the University System of Georgia could do. I’m sure there are other students and faculty in the same boat as our daughter. She should not have to go to class fearing exposure because there isn’t a mask mandate. She has worked too hard; she has come through a lot, to get to this point and risk COVID. All we are asking for is a mask.”
On Monday, faculty and students from about 20 public colleges and universities in Georgia began a five-day series of demonstrations demanding stronger COVID-19 safety measures, such as a mask mandate, in all campus buildings.
Last week, Maccartney’s reaffirmation of the voluntary mask policy won applause from the Board of Regents, all of whom are political appointees and many of whom have long extolled the need for Georgia to graduate more students in the health and medical fields. The irony here is rich: The people who manage Georgia’s public campuses want them to produce more professionals in the very disciplines they are ignoring now as the delta variant ravages the state.
In disregarding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s call to require indoor masking, the Regents and Maccartney are putting more faith in Kemp’s undergraduate degree in agriculture than the nation’s physicians and infectious disease researchers. As Maccartney said, “We continue to be in alignment with the governor’s expectations and requirements for state agencies through this pandemic.”
However, a few of the Regents are aligning with the CDC and medical experts when it comes to the health and safety of their own workplaces, staffs and clients. The offices of Regents C. Thomas Hopkins Jr., an orthopedic surgeon, Samuel Holmes, chairman of the commercial real estate services firm CBRE Inc., and Neil L. Pruitt Jr., chairman and CEO of Pruitthealth, have mask requirements.
Hopkins’ medical practice proclaims, “Orthogeorgia is following the CDC recommended best practices to provide you and our employees with a safe environment: All patients and employees are required to wear face masks inside Orthogeorgia facilities.” Pruitt’s health care facilities require masks for all visitors and patients and the website features masked employees. CBRE’S playbook on reopening says, “CBRE is following CDC guidelines and more stringent mask guidance — including requiring employees to wear masks when they are moving through the office and not at a socially distanced workstation ... Employees in roles that involve direct contact with other people on a regular basis during the day, such as receptionists, will need to wear a mask at their workstations.”
A UGA associate professor and mother of a little girl with a rare and catastrophic neurological disorder for whom COVID-19 poses a deadly risk, Usree Bhattacharya was crushed to learn the Regents are standing by the mask-optional policy.
“My heart breaks to hear that. Just breaks,” she said. “Since the start of the pandemic, my husband and I have done everything in our power to protect her. We kept her out of school for 14 months, until we felt it was safe to put her back when our school district took the wise decision to require masks for everyone. UGA, part of the same community, is calling on its community to do the ‘right thing.’ I don’t understand why we then don’t just expect our community to do the ‘right thing’ in all matters. Why is it negotiable when it comes to a matter of life and death?”