Stockton U. jumps on the vaccine hypocrisy pile (Opinion)

Add Stockton University as the latest New Jersey school to join that long gray line of hypocrisy. They are requiring students taking courses on campus to be vaccinated against COVID-19 this fall. It is mandatory. But they are only encouraging, not requiring, faculty and staff to do the same.

Yet the quote from Stockton President Harvey Kesselman was, “One of the most important steps we all can take to keep ourselves and each other safe is to get vaccinated. It is the responsible thing to do.”

Ah, I see. So students are required to do the responsible thing. But faculty and staff are NOT required to do the responsible thing. What a joke.

Some other institutions of higher learning that have told the same joke are Rutgers University, Rider, Montclair, Kean, New Jersey City University, Drew and Fairleigh Dickinson.

And I’m not laughing.

Either this is important or it’s not. Either we’re closing in on 600,000 dead Americans in a little over a year and we have a vaccine to put an end to this nightmare or we have deep state conspiracy theories and far too many alt-right talking heads spewing lies.

So if you choose science and reality, choose it all the way. Don’t put professors tenure or a strong union above lives and science. It should be all or nothing. If it’s not important enough to require it of faculty and staff, how dare you require it of students?

One university is even taking the extraordinary step of offering a $1000 incentive for students to comply with the vaccine requirement. Rowan University announced those who show proof of vaccination against COVID will receive a $500 credit towards course registration and the $500 credit towards housing. With that level of virtue signaling you would think it would be all hands on deck right? Well according to an article on nj.com it remains unclear if Rowan like the other universities are allowing faculty and staff to skate by without doing it.

All this reminds me of the George Orwell classic Animal Farm. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski. Any opinions expressed are Jeff Deminski's own.