Unease among instructors and students about returning to campus this fall already was on the rise at some universities as COVID-19 cases surged weeks before the semester is due to begin.
Now, a federal rule change announced this week that threatens to deport international students if classes go fully online has added another dimension — one evident in an open letter signed by about 1,000 University of Pittsburgh students and employees.
The letter to Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher, Provost Ann Cudd and Anantha Shekhar, chair of the university’s Healthcare Advisory Group, says the federal policy change, in effect, is pitting the well-being of one student group against the campus as a whole.
It "forces us into a false binary: either guarantee everyone’s health by holding online classes but deport all international students, or protect all international students by having in-person classes but jeopardize everyone’s health," the letter states.
The signers, a mix of graduate assistants, students, instructors and others, say they want "the right to refuse to provide or engage in" any in-person class.
"If we want to teach and learn entirely remotely, we should be able to. If we do not want to set foot on campus, we should not have to,'' it said.
Pitt officials Friday called the federal policy change covering international students unfair and discriminatory and said they are working with other higher education organizations to overturn it. They defended the university’s approach to fall instruction, dubbed Flex@Pitt.
“We have made it clear that Flex@Pitt accommodates community members — faculty and students alike — whose personal health or circumstances prevent them from coming to the classroom, even with very rigorous health and safety measures in place, Pitt spokesman David Seldin said.
A number of campuses, Penn State University among them, have seen the debate over who should decide when it’s safe to return to the classroom go public as a virus that has killed 134,000 in the U.S. continues to spread.
At Pitt, the letter’s initial intent was to assure students and instructors had the option of face-to-face or remote instruction given health risks as cases have increased this summer, Boen Wang, 25, of Bryn Mawr, a graduate instructor in the English department and one of the letter’s authors, said Friday.
But the international student decree this week from the Trump administration required a change in focus, one that Mr. Wang said is part of the reason why hundreds have signed. “It affects everyone,” he said.
International students should be free to take online courses without fear or removal from the U.S, the letter states. It urges that Pitt become a sanctuary campus, protecting international students from both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that authored the new federal rule, and COVID-19, by limiting campus access to ICE agents without a judicial warrant.
The rule change announced Monday by ICE, pulls back leniency granted to international students to take courses remotely as the pandemic hit this spring. It would deny U.S. entry to students taking online only instruction, and require students at schools where instruction switches to remote to either transfer or face removal proceedings.
Officials with ICE have been unavailable for comment on the rationale for this week’s policy change. Members of the Trump administration have said the economy and schools need to reopen despite the pandemic, and President Trump has threatened to cut funding to schools that do not do so.
Bill Schackner: bschackner@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1977 and on Twitter: @Bschackner
First Published: July 10, 2020, 8:43 p.m.
Updated: July 11, 2020, 4:45 a.m.
