CU should shut down

As a senior at the University of Colorado Boulder, I am immeasurably disappointed by CU Boulder’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak on campus. The chancellor’s issuing of a 14-day “mandatory quarantine” where students are still required to attend classes, labs, and trainings, and in which the rec center remains open, is laughably performative.

When this “quarantine” period inevitably fails to eradicate the hundreds of cases hosted on the campus we are required to populate, it feels fair to predict campus will be shut down with fingers pointed at students.

Blame for the outbreak has been consistently placed on a “small minority” who do not abide by social distancing requirements. Yet if students had not been obligated to come back to campus, there would be no outbreak.

It is convenient for CU Boulder to point fingers at fraternities and sororities, as this provides the school with an easy copout for its continually lackluster response. If CU Boulder was genuinely concerned for our well being, the school would at minimum institute a 14-day period of no classes, no labs, no rec center, nothing. In other words, a real quarantine.

The university’s prioritization of financial gain over student safety was apparent when the school first insisted on in-person classes as confirmed cases climbed to the highest they’d been. CU Boulder is neglecting its students during a global pandemic and actively pushing the blame back on us.

We should not be asked to repeatedly expose ourselves under the platitude that we are “Buffs together.” We should be at home, not risking our health in the name of a degree.