How Universities Can Open for the Fall Semester?

Start Early, Vaccines, Social Distancing in Classrooms, & Testing

Law professor and legal blogger, Brian Leiter, offers this advice:

Having followed carefully the work of experts and science writers the last few weeks, this is my assessment of how a fall term will be possible in the U.S. (at least for some schools), assuming there is no significant medical breakthrough in the coming months (let us hope there is, then it will be easier); readers are invited to offer corrections, suggestions, links to other sources etc.

First, universities would be well-advised to start the school year earlier than late August, on the assumption that by June and July we will see some decline in illness and infection (either because of the weather or because of the massive lockdowns). If schools start in early or even mid-August they could conceivably finish the fall term by Thanksgiving, that is, before the ordinary winter flu season gets going, which will just compound the problems. (I am skeptical that we will have a normal winter/spring term.)

Second, and relatedly, colleges must require a flu vaccine as a condition of continued enrollment. (Flu vaccines are typically available in September.) Colleges, let alone health systems, simply cannot deal with flu on top of COVID-19. Public schools at the pre-collegiate levels require vaccinations; colleges must do so, with exceptions only for those who have health reasons for not getting a flu shot.

Third, colleges will have to institute serious social distancing and related measures: that means providing masks to students and requiring their use, scheduling classes in rooms that permit students to stay at least six feet apart (think checker-board seating patterns in big lecture halls), and the same for dining halls; providing hand sanitizer everywhere, and so on. Since schools may not have sufficient space for checker-board seating, they may need to have students attend class "live" on alternate days: so, e.g., some students will watch online or watch a video of the class some days, and other days will attend and be able to participate normally. Fraternity and sorority parties, needless to say, are a thing of the past this fall. (This step presupposes that we will have appropriate supplies by August, but who knows?)

Fourth, college healthcare facilities will need to be able to do extensive testing of student populations; perhaps being tested will also need to be a condition of enrollment. This way schools can know who needs to be isolated because of infection (asymptomatic or otherwise), who has antibodies already, and who is still vulnerable to infection. Schools may need to create special dorms for those with antibodies, those without, etc. (UPDATE: As a commenter points out, it would probably make more sense to integrate those with antibodies with the rest of the student population.)

These steps may make it possible to have a partially normal fall semester. Maybe they will make it possible to do the same in the second half of the academic year, although I fear a second wave of serious infection will emerge by Thanksgiving and continue into the winter months, at the same time as the ordinary seasonal flu. On the other hand, if colleges mandate flu vaccinations--they really must do this--then perhaps even that will be manageable.