Senator Declan O’Scanlon called the administration at Rutgers an embarrassment and said that the University’s President and leadership cabinet should resign after doubling down on their COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Sen. Declan O’Scanlon called the administration at Rutgers an embarrassment and said that the University’s President and leadership cabinet should resign after doubling down on their COVID-19 vaccine mandate. (DoD via Flickr)
“It has been days since the national humiliation of Rutgers commenced over their anti-science, oppressive COVID vaccine policy. Initially I thought the folks at the top simply weren’t paying attention, rather than being complicit in this nonsense. That once it was publicly brought to their attention some level-headed, rational person would step up and end the policy. Not only has the policy not been rescinded, but high-level, uninformed bureaucratic administrators are actually doubling down and reasserting their mandates. It’s incredible,” said O’Scanlon (R-13). “If this is the quality of leadership at Rutgers, it’s time to make a change. These people have no business being in charge of, and destroying, the credibility of what should be the esteemed, pre-eminent public New Jersey university. President Holloway and every other Rutgers administrator who isn’t stepping up and ending this madness should resign immediately.”
Senator O’Scanlon sharply criticized Rutger’s ongoing COVID vaccine mandate which requires students to provide proof of immunization to attend classes. Those who do not comply with the University’s mandate may face disenrollment from the institution.
Rutgers was the first university in the nation to institute a mandatory COVID vaccine policy and even required students to be boosted until May 16 of this year after the public health emergency officially came to an end.
Antonio Calcado, Chief Operating Officer at Rutgers University said in an interview with News Nation that, “If [a students] choice is that they cannot be here under these conditions, we understand that. We wanted to give them that…opportunity, though, to make that choice and not be rushed into that choice.”
Senator O’Scanlon said the administration is digging a deeper hole by doubling down on their vaccine policy.
“The arrogance of school administrators to tell their students to uproot their college plans and go somewhere else is absurd,” O’Scanlon added. “To essentially say to these kids ‘screw you, completely uproot your college plans and go somewhere else if you don’t like our monumentally irrational policy’ is callous arrogance, on top of the stupidity. It’s unfathomable that we’re in 2023, nearing 2024 at this point, and still talking about how to control people’s personal health decisions that impact no one else. The madness needs to stop, and these administrators need to step down…or simply admit that the policy is foolish, rescind it, and let all of their students partake in a world-class education.”