Penn's Pandemic Power Play

Op-ed on covid mandates in The Daily Pennsylvanian

University of Pennsylvania researchers Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó. Photo by Thorne Media.

The above photo features two University of Pennsylvania scientists who were recently awarded the Noble Prize in Medicine for their research in mRNA vaccine technology. While Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó may be raking in the post-pandemic accolades, it is their employer—UPenn—that has lined its pockets.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

This staggering number comes as a result of Penn’s patents on mRNA technology behind the covid vaccines. Despite this glaring conflict of interest, Penn still mandated these shots for its students and employees, with punishments for non-compliance ranging from registration holds to termination.

I recently co-wrote an op-ed with visiting assistant professor of philosophy, George Borg, for The Daily Pennsylvanian addressing this and other issues surrounding Penn’s covid regime. In it, we argue that:

A liberal education does not merely seek to produce skilled workers and managers who will do what they’re told. It aims to cultivate well-rounded citizens who can think for themselves. This aim is echoed in Penn’s motto, "Leges sine Moribus vanae," or “laws without morals are useless.”

But the University vaccine mandates made thinking for oneself irrelevant. 

The reason is simple. They replaced reasoned argument with a threat of force: Take the shot or lose your access to higher education, or your job. For those future “critical minds” interested in logic, the mandates were an instance of the known "ad baculum" (literally, “to the stick”) fallacy, which can be summarized as, “You should take the shot, because otherwise you’ll get kicked out.”

If you’d like to read the rest of the op-ed, you can find it here on The Daily Pennsylvanian’s website.

It is, paradoxically, both too early and too late for such a retrospective look at college and university covid mandates. Too early, because many campuses still mandate the shots. And too late, because the physical and psychological havoc wreaked by the mandates is still felt on campuses, like Penn’s, where they are no longer in effect.

Nonetheless, George and I felt that it was important to write this piece at this moment when more and more people are waking up to the crimes of the covid regime. I hope that its message will resonate with readers at The Daily Pennsylvanian, Handful of Earth, and beyond.