[Chicks]

I work for Liberty University. Jerry Falwell Jr. is taking an extreme path that threatens lives.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/relig...g-coronavirus/

Jerry Falwell, Jr. is about to make a terrible mistake.

It’s time for the Liberty University Board to stop him and shut the campus down before it's too late.

Although Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s ban on gatherings of more than 100 people forced Falwell to cancel residential classes at Liberty University, the campus remains open, with students set to return to dorms early next week either to live out the semester or to clean out their rooms.

“As you may know,” a notice on the Liberty website states, “the University has decided to move most classes to a digital format and to allow students the choice to return to campus after Spring Break or stay home and complete their classes remotely.”

This decision runs contrary to the three other residential schools in our area who have closed their dorms, allowing only those with nowhere else to go to remain.

Faculty and staff are also required to report, despite the fact that telecommuting options are readily available. As a Liberty faculty member, I have been told that my colleagues and I must conduct our classes from our offices, even though that instruction is now being delivered virtually. We are also expected to hold office hours and welcome students for face-to-face interaction.

This as the window for “flattening the curve” of the outbreak is closing.

This foolhardy decision tracks Falwell’s conspiratorial thinking about COVID-19 and smacks of defiance.

He has repeatedly made clear that he canceled residential classes for legal, not moral, reasons. In fact, his public comments on the pandemic have manifested bravado, self-congratulation, and callousness in the extreme, as he even this week on the Todd Starnes radio show spewed far-fetched, unsubstantiated, and misleading information about the coronavirus outbreak.

Sigh.