Clarissa's Blog

Unvaccinated faculty and students are harassed with weekly COVID tests in my workplace.

Here’s what happens when a professor misses a weekly test.

COVID tracers send a list of their names to HR.

HR sends a list of their names to the Dean.

The Dean sends a list of their names to the Chair.

The Chair harasses them individually.

Why such a complex, Byzantine system? Why not just send them an email from the very first stop in this chain?

I’ve lived in a totalitarian society, so let me explain: nobody cares if you get tested or not. This isn’t about that. The goal is to involve as many people as possible in spying and snitching on each other. The goal is to make the non-compliant massively hated because so many people have to waste time and effort on bullying them to comply. The goal is to ensure that as many people as possible know their names – completely in violation of all the usual protections of medical privacy.

The process is repeated every week into infinity. How fast does the Dean and the Chair remember the names of the people who are causing all this bother all the time? How soon before they begin to – maybe completely unwittingly and subconsciously – to discriminate against the annoying personnel?

Add to this that the list given to me of the “lower-caste” workers in my department was actually 100% incorrect. They couldn’t have gotten tested on campus even if they really wanted. They are teaching online (we are still only 30% back) and two of them are out of state. I know for an absolute fact that at least one of them is fully vaccinated and extremely fanatical about it. Anybody who worked in a bureaucracy knows that with each extra step added to any procedure, the potential for mistakes quadruples.

This procedure, as well as microaggression trainings, anti-racisms, and diversity efforts, aim to isolate workers and make them fear and dislike each other. Please think about it before you participate.