Sacrificing Our Principles

What seems to have been completely lost in the School of Public Health's decision to hold hybrid (meaning in-person) classes is that we are in the middle of a pandemic that has killed more than 190,000 people and that as a school of public health, our mission should be to try to reduce that toll to the greatest extent possible. It appears that the primary factor considered in the university's initial decision was purely financial. Why else would we decide back in April (in the middle of a raging pandemic) to open back up in September, without having any idea whatsoever what the situation would be like? But even if you put that aside and simply consider what decision would make sense at the present time, the primary factors being used to defend in-person classes are financial impact, student expectations, educational value, and the low rate of infection at the moment. I have argued elsewhere on this blog that it is inappropriate to place financial impact above public health, tha...

According to Boston University, the Learn from Anywhere (LfA) approach was chosen because : "It protects the health and safety of everyone, students and faculty, and provides the kind of flexibility that students need in these difficult times. It enables the University to meet the needs of all students, and to deliver the same high-quality teaching BU students are accustomed to.” Two weeks into the semester, it is clear that this rationale is a hoax.  First, in what way does LfA protect the health and safety of everyone ? Does it protect the health and safety of faculty who are forced to teach classes even though they live with family members who are at high risk of COVID complications? Does it protect the health and safety of employees who are required to spend long hours in classrooms? Does it protect the health and safety of students who may be exposed for at least 162 hours in relatively poorly ventilated classrooms under conditions in which we know that COVID spreads thro...

In this guest commentary, attorney John Sherman refutes the argument that holding in-person classes is justified because the current rate of COVID infection is low and if it rises, we can just revert to online classes. John Sherman is an attorney with expertise in business and human rights. He is Senior Program Fellow at the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, an Executive Fellow at the Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University, and Senior Advisor and General Counsel of Shift. The Collective Failure of Educational Institutions in Boston to Assess the Risk of Transmission to the Community is a Scandal In the WGBH audio, the dean of the school of public health said that he supported the school’s decision to reopen because Massachusetts numbers are low, but if that changes, BU would have to change as well.   I found that comment to be very disturbing, since it does not reflect the likelihood that the transmission of the virus from BU...

In this commentary, I want to explain the two major reasons why the LfA (Learn from Anywhere) approach being implemented at the Boston University School of Public Health is a racist policy that has no place in a school of public health. I show why it violates the principle of social justice that is supposedly one of the School's top priorities. In the LfA approach, students may choose whether they want to attend a class in-person or remotely. This is also called a hybrid approach because there are some students in the classroom and some students who are remote. 1. This educational approach systematically conveys benefits to the most privileged and denies them to the most vulnerable, who are disproportionately students of color . The School has tried to justify the LfA approach by arguing that it is designed to give students a choice based on their educational preferences: that is, students can choose based on how they learn best. However, the truth is that the primary deciding fact...