Statue of Ezra Cornell wearing a mask on Cornell University campus
Despite some concerns over variant strains abroad, worries of a COVID-19 outbreak at Cornell have been ebbing. With the Cornell population at a 97% vaccination rate and daily new cases consistently in the single digits, Cornellians are coming to find that they can live with COVID-19 risk. This acceptance of risk was apparent in the reports of widespread masklessness at Saturday’s men’s hockey game (which was hosted in Madison Square Garden).
This sentiment can also be found in national media; last week, Dave Leonhardt of the New York Times wrote that “for most people, the vaccines remain remarkably effective at turning COVID-19 into a manageable illness.” With negligible death and hospitalization rates from COVID-19 infection, Leonhardt concluded that vaccinated individuals under 50 likely faced substantially greater risks from everyday activities like biking-riding or driving. That description applies to nearly every student and a large number of the faculty. Cornellians are seeing this and realizing that Cornell’s mask and testing requirements are more bother than they’re worth.
Cornell has been reducing its COVID-19 restrictions somewhat, particularly by reducing testing requirements to once a week for all students. When it comes to mask-wearing, however, Cornell’s hands are tied, at least, according to President Martha Pollack at a recent Student Assembly meeting. State guidelines and dictates, as well as “the science,” prevented Cornell from allowing students to drop the masks anytime soon, the president argued.
However, blanket legalization is not Cornell’s only option to reduce mask restrictions. Cornell can decriminalize masklessness, or suspend its enforcement of mask requirements, while still requiring masks on paper. There is ample precedent for decriminalizing rules with questionable morality or enforceability, such as New York State’s own decriminalization of marijuana possession laws before legalizing it in 2021.
Decriminalizing masklessness offers several attractive benefits to the students and the school.
First, it allows students, who are intelligent, educated, and informed, to make their own decisions when it comes to mask wearing. With the choice to wear masks, students can exercise their own decisions about personal risk and social responsibility–an important life skill– in a relatively harmless setting. Cornell students may be young adults, but adults nonetheless; they can and should learn to make important decisions on their own.
Secondly, it reduces the chance of embarrassing attempts at enforcement, as happened in October when a professor’s attempt to identify and fail two mask-less students in class drew national media criticism. Cornell’s current enforcement structure is rather muddled and unclear, with some professors playing the enforcer and others turning a blind eye to masklessness. Reportedly, a handful of students have received emails from the administration in response to mask infractions. In truth, it’s unfair to place the burden of mask enforcement on professors and teaching assistants, who are there to educate, not parent. A policy of non-enforcement would relieve teachers of that burden.
Lastly, decriminalizing masklessness would avert the risk of a student revolt over masking. College students are renowned for their intractable resistance to authority. While Cornellians have largely abided by the administration’s mask rules, that likely will not last forever, especially as the benefits of mask-wearing decrease. A mass defiance of mask-wearing rules is a real possibility, and it could corrode Cornell’s authority to institute other potentially necessary requirements in the future. All this could be avoided if Cornell adopts an open policy of non-enforcement.
Masks provide little benefit to a community as young and vaccinated as Cornell’s, and are potentially detrimental to social interaction, bonding, and communication. The costs of masks are particularly acute for those who rely on facial expressions and lip-reading for communication, such as, but not limited to, the deaf and the hard of hearing. Furthermore, Cornell’s existing mask requirements and enforcement structures infringe on student autonomy and create an unnecessary risk of embarrassing encounters in classrooms. Cornell should just avoid the whole mess, and decriminalize masklessness.
