Facing backlash, Penn State changes offending language in COVID-19 Compact with students
Penn State’s Bailey Campbell, a Ph.D. student, said she was “horrified” the first time she spotted the university’s COVID-19 Compact, which required students’ signatures before they could fully access the university’s online features.
Campbell — an organizer for the Coalition of Graduate Employees at Penn State — didn’t need to stare long at the online form last week before she refused to sign. She found the language near the end especially concerning: I assume any and all risk of exposure to COVID-19 that may result from attending Penn State, or participating in Penn State activities, and I acknowledge that exposure or infection may result in personal injury, illness, permanent disability, or death.
To Campbell, and many in the Penn State community, the compact read more like a legal liability waiver. So, in response, the university announced Thursday that it would change the offending language.
“We welcome the change because it does get rid of the language that seems to absolve legal responsibility on the part of Penn State,” Campbell said, adding she’d likely sign the compact now. “That was a huge concern.”
Zachary McKay, president of the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA), said the student government shared similar concerns last week, calling the original language “alarming to me, every member of my cabinet, and many of the students we’ve spoken with since its release.” He said the UPUA spoke with the administration last Friday and recommended a public clarification.
That came Thursday morning, in the form of an unattributed news release.
“While we have seen a strong response from our student community, with approximately 64,000 students having already agreed to the Compact online, we have heard from some concerned with language requiring students to assume the risks of exposure to COVID-19,” the release read. “Others have misinterpreted the language of the Compact as a waiver of students’ rights, which was neither the case, nor the intent.”
In place of the old language, Penn State plans to offer another option in the coming days that will instead read: Even with the mitigation steps taken by Penn State and my compliance with this Compact, I acknowledge that Penn State cannot prevent the risks of exposure to COVID-19 that may result from attending Penn State or participating in Penn State activities.
Although the university appeared to intimate students overreacted to the original language, at least one legal expert sided with the students. Georgetown professor Heidi Li Feldman, who focuses on legal liability, told Spotlight PA that Penn State was on the more “extreme end” when it came to the compact.
Her advice? “The first thing I would urge is that they do not sign this,” she told the media outlet, before the language was changed.
On Thursday, the university also clarified that any and all students returning to campus will still be required to sign the COVID-19 Compact. However, those who choose to learn completely remotely will not have to sign.
Campbell would still prefer to see the university halt its reopening plan and simply go completely remote, saying that’s really the only “safe” choice. But she acknowledged this was a step in the right direction.
“Personally,” she said, “I think it’s OK to sign now.”
Added McKay: “I was happy to sign the compact once I knew for a fact that it does not cast off total responsibility of the university for the health of their students, as the initial language implied.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 4:43 PM.
