Officials at Ohio University moved swiftly to limit the spread of the new coronavirus: They moved classes online, emptied dorms, and closed some campus facilities.
Then on Sunday, Ohio’s Republican governor ordered a suspension of sit-down service in restaurants, following the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation against gatherings of 50 or more.
Despite the university, state, and federal efforts, thousands of students at the southeast Ohio institution planned to proceed with “Coronafest,” an enormous party that was scheduled for this coming Saturday. The event had been conceived only after the university converted to online classes.
Athens, Ohio, is famed for its annual “fests” — raucous house parties that spill into the streets and that take place over several weekends each spring. The events draw partygoers from across the state, but the plans hit a major roadblock when the university announced last week it was moving to online instruction for the rest of the semester.
University and city police departments usually observe at a distance and send in rows of officers on horseback to break up the fests when they get too rowdy. For “Coronafest,” however, officials are planning a more direct approach. Violating an order from the state health director prohibiting gatherings of more than 50 people would carry major consequences, M. Duane Nellis, Ohio University’s president, said in a joint statement issued on Monday with city and county officials.
“Any attempt to assemble in violation of the health director’s order will result in immediate action by law enforcement, with charges for those in violation potentially including criminal offenses such as misconduct at an emergency, failure to disperse, and riot,” the statement reads. Students who gather could also face suspension or expulsion from any public university in Ohio, and a suspension of state financial aid for up to two years.
“We cannot overstate the seriousness of this situation, and thus, for the sake of everyone’s health and safety, we strongly discourage any attempt to organize ‘fests’ while the health director’s order remains in effect,” the statement says.
While some students reportedly wanted to attend the fest, groups that normally promote parties at the university have withdrawn support for it.
Universities’ jurisdiction usually extends only as far as the borders of campus and to university-owned off-campus housing. While officials can do everything in their power to keep students from gathering, their enforcement authority is limited.
Some institutions have taken a more aggressive approach to limiting the spread of the virus in off-campus housing. In an email to parents over the weekend, the University of Pennsylvania said students in both on-campus and off-campus housing are expected to vacate by March 17. The university reportedly reached out to landlords for help, calling it a “public-health necessity.”
As colleges and universities have struggled to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving situation, here are links to The Chronicle’s key coverage of how this worldwide health crisis is affecting campuses.
But some landlords told The Daily Pennsylvanian, a campus newspaper, that they hadn’t heard from the university. Others assured their residents that the UPenn officials couldn’t take away off-campus housing.
“This is your home, and you are welcome to stay. No one at the University has a right to require you to leave your apartment, or to move out of University City or Philadelphia,” a general manager of one rental company wrote to residents, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
When asked for comment, university officials pointed to their online coronavirus resources.
While Ohio University and Athens police officials plan to crack down on any festing, no one has tried to force students from their off-campus housing. Joy Blanchard, an associate professor of higher education at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, said universities lack such jurisdiction.
Blanchard, who studies the intersection of higher education and law, said she understands that universities are trying to be “good stewards” of their communities, but she noted that off-campus housing is a matter of contract law. Students have signed a contract with a landlord, not the university, she said.
“Even in a normal situation, there really is no control,” she said.
That also means that universities aren’t liable for anything that happens at off-campus gatherings, Blanchard said. She added that the best ways for universities to approach off-campus housing issues during the coronavirus threat is to educate students, families, and landlords about mitigating the spread of the virus.
Universities aren’t entirely helpless when it comes to dealing with off-campus parties. City police officers in Dayton, Ohio, and campus officers from the University of Dayton, clad in riot gear, cleared more than 1,000 people from the streets last week after the university announced it was temporarily closing student housing and moving to an online-education model.
The university said in a statement that its officers had shot pepper balls into the crowds of students after they refused to disperse.
And two days after the confrontation in Dayton, police officers in Morgantown, W.Va., used tear gas to disperse a large crowd in a neighborhood adjacent to West Virginia University. Seven students were reportedly among those arrested.
