In an abrupt about-face, the State of Georgia will now require face coverings to be worn at its 26 public colleges and universities.
The decision, announced late Monday, will affect hundreds of thousands of students, faculty, and staff.
For weeks, Georgia’s university system had resisted calls for a mask mandate. Gov. Brian Kemp is a staunch supporter of President Trump, and the governor has not required masks for the public as a whole.
The University System of Georgia, in keeping masks optional, was essentially following the governor’s lead.
But faculty and students protested — noting that the vast majority of U.S. colleges plan to reopen with a mask mandate. Health experts say that masks are among the most important public-safety tools that colleges can employ during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Georgia’s policy reversal comes six days after a Chronicle story highlighted the heavy-handed role of the state system on the mask issue. Records obtained by the newspaper showed that some public colleges in Georgia clearly wanted to require masks, but the state wouldn’t let them.
On Thursday, outraged faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology began circulating a petition that blasted the state’s micromanagement. The petition asked the state to “empower the President of Georgia Tech to act independently to safeguard the health and safety needs of the Georgia Tech community, informed by scientific evidence.”
More than 850 faculty members signed the petition.
Georgia officials, in announcing the new mask requirement on Monday, said the state’s change of heart was prompted by the federal government’s updating its official coronavirus guidelines.
“Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance for managing COVID-19 related issues,” wrote Stuart Rayfield, vice chancellor for leadership and institutional development, in a statement sent to Georgia colleges on Monday. “Among the changes are to definitions for people who will need extra precaution due to age and underlying medical conditions. In response to those changes from the CDC, the University System of Georgia is providing updated guidance on the wearing of face coverings and for who is eligible to seek alternate work arrangements due to falling into one of these categories.”
It is unclear whether the updated CDC guidance said anything about masks specifically. The federal agency’s June 25 announcement of its updated guidance contains no mention of masks.
A Georgia university system spokesman did not immediately respond to a question about whether the CDC’s posture on masks had changed.
Regardless, the faculty uprising occurring in Georgia is unlikely to completely fade away. The mask issue is merely the latest example of a yearslong trend of power being consolidated by the university system. As a result, Georgia universities have lost some of their independence, and faculty are clamoring to take it back.
“I’m relieved that the USG has come to the conclusion that so many of its peers in neighboring states did weeks ago: Masks are a must on college campuses during the pandemic,” said Ian Bogost, a media-studies professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “But the change also shows that too much decision-making is happening centrally. Its 26 institutions should have been allowed to mandate masks on their campuses all along.”
