An English professor at Purdue University was irked by the university’s decision to lift part of its campuswide mask mandate, which he said would lead to more freedom and lazy attitudes toward health, according to an email sent to students.
Robert Marzec, a professor of English and literature at the Indiana-based university, emailed his students the day the mask mandate expired on campus while keeping it in place for classrooms and research areas.
The email was published by the popular Twitter account @LibsofTikTok and shows Marzec expressing concern that lifting the campuswide mandate would “translate to more freedom for a culture of health laziness and give more fodder to the combative, politicized conception of individual freedom now rampant.”
Wow. After Purdue University announced they were going mask optional, a professor sent out an email to his class where he voiced concerns about the “politicized conception of individual freedom” pic.twitter.com/tikgJwMWxX
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) February 19, 2022
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“I’m curious what folks think about today’s announcement concerning masks on our campus,” Marzec wrote. “A lax mask policy can easily lead to a new evolution of the virus, and yes, a virus becomes less deadly as it evolves.”
Purdue announced on Wednesday that masks would be optional “except for instructional, research and health care settings.”
The university said it would still conduct “routine surveillance testing” through at least the end of March and that “data-driven targeted testing will continue as a response to areas where there are concerns of potential outbreaks.”
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“Our Boilermaker students, faculty and staff continue to demonstrate just how committed they are to protecting our campus community from the spread of serious disease,” said Protect Purdue Health Center’s chief medical officer, Esteban Ramirez, when announcing the change. “We believe this is the next step toward greater normalcy based on rapidly declining national, state and campus case numbers.”
Marzec did not respond to a request for comment.
