Fordham University: On a COVID-19 Mandate Power Trip

A mother's story

Our daughter started her freshman year at Fordham University in the Fall of 2020.  Anyone with a college student beginning that fall will tell you that it was scary but exciting at the same time. Fordham announced that for the most part the students would be attending classes in-person.  It was a welcome reward for a heartbreaking and abrupt end to their high school years as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down in-person learning in the Spring of 2020.  

The start to the 2020-2021 school year at Fordham, as well as other colleges throughout the U.S., was unconventional to say the least.  Due to their fear surrounding COVID-19, many professors opted out of teaching in-person classes, and they used a virtual platform instead.  Masks were required throughout the entire campus such as in-person classes, residence halls and communal bathrooms,  and the gym, which is a non-essential building, was closed.  There were other protocols to follow such as: reporting daily health status through a check-in system, grab-and-go dining and random on-campus COVID-19 testing.  Although it wasn’t the ideal first year college experience, our daughter remained hopeful about the future possibilities at Fordham.

As the school year drew to a close in Spring 2021, COVID-19  numbers were significantly dropping in New York City.  On April 16, 2021, parents received an email from Fordham stating that all students would be required to receive the primary series COVID-19 vaccines by August 1, 2021 in order to enroll for the Fall 2021 semester. At that time, the mandate applied to students only. Fordham communicated that “it is the University’s strong expectation that all faculty, staff, and administrators likewise be fully vaccinated on or before the beginning of the fall semester.”  Parents and students were outraged by this double standard, and we took to social media platforms such as Instagram accounts, Facebook parent pages, Facebook Fordham pages and other parent groups to voice our frustrations.  In June 2021, Fordham updated the COVID-19 vaccine mandate to include all employees teaching or working in-person and all campus visitors.

My husband and I were furious about this mandate; not only because we felt the vaccine was unnecessary for healthy, young adults, but also because our Fordham daughter had just recovered from COVID-19, and she had acquired natural antibodies. The Fordham COVID-19 vaccine mandate also meant that unvaccinated family members couldn’t help move their students into their dorms, visit throughout the year or attend on campus ceremonies, games or other events hosted by Fordham.

I called Bob Howe, the Director of Communications, to express my concerns regarding the mandate.  He concluded our phone call saying that “there will be very few exemptions given out”.  In spite of this discouragement, our daughter wrote a religious exemption letter expressing her sincerely held religious beliefs which she emailed to Fordham’s Health Services Director, Maureen Keown.  Ms Keown responded “after careful review, your request for exemption from the requirement to have a COVID-19 vaccine for the 2021-2022 academic year has been denied.  Failure to provide proof of a completed COVID-19 vaccination series by August 1, 2021 will restrict your ability to enter campus, attend in person classes, live in University housing and/or participate in any University activities on and off campus.  Vaccine records can be uploaded to the Fordham Student Health Portal which can be found on my.fordham.edu under the My Apps tab.  If you wish to explore the option to defer or take a leave of absence or to inquire about the possibility of remote learning, please contact your academic dean’s office.”  Our daughter sent an appeal email stating that Fordham was denying her constitutional right to religious freedom. Her email was forwarded to the Dean of Students, Keith Eldridge, who responded that her exemption request didn’t align with her receipt of past vaccines and that her argument on the use of  fetal cell lines was not accurate. When our daughter provided even more evidence to support her religious beliefs,  Dean Eldridge replied “unfortunately we are not prepared to change our decision.”

With the August 1st deadline rapidly approaching and our daughter’s exemption having been denied, I called an attorney in July, 2021.  Likely inundated with work, he did not respond in time. With one week left before the vaccine deadline, our daughter had given up and complied with the Fordham vaccination mandate. Feeling beaten and worn down, she didn’t want to fight anymore, and she just wanted to resume “normalcy.”

On December 14, 2021, Fordham released yet another COVID-19 policy update which stated that “Fordham University requires all members of our faculty, staff and students to be fully vaccinated, and with the Delta and Omicron variants circulating and infection rates increasing, the University will require every member of our faculty, staff, and students to receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose prior to the start of classes for the spring 2022 semester or as soon as medically permissible.”  Once again, parents and students reached out to Bob Howe to voice our concerns about the booster mandate. When we asked him to provide the science that Fordham was using to mandate this new booster, Bob replied with “we are following CDC guidelines.”  We asked our daughter to consider transferring to another college, but she refused. Rather than transfer to another college or file for another religious exemption, she also complied with the booster mandate. 

We assumed that Fordham’s first COVID-19 booster mandate would be the last one. We had hoped that with Fordham’s 95%+ vaccination rate and with ongoing low infection rates, Fordham would come to accept that COVID-19  was here to stay and that continued infections were inevitable.  The vaccines do not prevent the virus from transmitting to other community members and not a single COVID-19 case among the student body has been fatal.  It was evident that Fordham administrators neither had real evidence to support their mandate nor were they willing to address the parents’ concerns of risks to student health with unknown and unproven vaccines.

With each Fordham mandate, our frustration and anger grew and our trust in the University waned.  Fordham’s general authoritarianism and refusal to respond with data-based answers led us to cast serious doubts on their values as a Jesuit University.  In an email to students and parents sent on July 27, 2022, there was no explicit mention that the bivalent booster would be mandated; the email only stated that for the Fall 2022 semester, students must be “up-to-date as defined by the CDC.” The CDC’s Website defines up-to-date as having received two vaccines plus a booster dose (Pfizer or Moderna), or one vaccine plus a booster dose (J&J). 

On September, 26th, one month into the Fall 2022 semester and with students already settled into the new school year and tuition refunds no longer available, Fordham mandated a second booster dose. The new and inadequately tested bivalent booster was required for the entire community by November 1st. In the weeks following the announcement, opposition to the bivalent booster mandate quickly grew among the Fordham community with parents, faculty and staff taking their frustration to social media platforms. A Facebook group called “Fordham Families Together” was created, and it became a place where the Fordham community could openly express their concerns without fear of retribution. As the Facebook page grew so did media coverage. News12, Fox5, Bronx Times, and The Fordham Ram have featured stories on the controversial Fordham mandate including interviews from parents, staff and students. On October 14th, parents, students and employees staged an anti-mandate protest outside the gates of the Rose Hill campus and CBS2 covered the story. CBS2 reported that “Fordham denied [our] request for an on-camera interview. Instead, they sent us a long statement, arguing the shots are safe and do reduce transmission.”

If Fordham administrators are truly following CDC guidance, as they claim they are, then their policies and actions should logically align with that guidance. The CDC is only recommending the bivalent booster and not suggesting it become a requirement, and so we ask that Fordham take the same position. What is very concerning is Fordham’s relentless insistence that the COVID-19 vaccines reduce virus transmission when recent statements from the CDC definitively state otherwise.  On August 5, 2021, CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky publicly announced on CNN that “what [the COVID-19 vaccines] can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.”  Why is Fordham dismissing this statement?  What science does Fordham have that the CDC doesn’t have?  On October 12, 2022, Insidehighered.com interviewed Bob Howe and he boldly proclaimed that there is “.. a significant body of evidence that the bivalent booster significantly reduces the risk of transmission.” This is completely contradictory to statements made by the director of the CDC. 

Fordham is a University with a wonderful academic reputation, but it has let us down immensely. So many of us were shunned, mocked and labeled “anti-vaxers” for speaking out to protect the health of our students.  Currently, Fordham is the only Jesuit University in the nation, and the only University in the state of New York that has mandated the bivalent booster with no scientific data to support it.  There are now multiple studies on the adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines and the possibility of long-term harms remains uncertain. So why is Fordham forcing students to choose between taking an experimental treatment that could jeopardize their health or withdraw?   Why won’t they review the data to decide if the bivalent booster has any true benefit for healthy college students?  

Our students enrolled to get a high quality education at Fordham. They never expected that they would be stripped of informed consent or that they would lose the freedom to choose what medical treatments they put in their bodies.  Fordham’s mission is the “promotion of justice and the protection of human rights.” Why do its leaders not grasp the stark contrast between Fordham’s actions and its mission statement in recent years? Did Fordham trade its Jesuit values for political clout at the expense of our students? I hope not, but one can’t help but wonder.

The November 1st deadline is tomorrow.  Thankfully like-minded parents, students, faculty and alumni have found each other, and we are willing to speak out against Fordham’s inhumane and unjust policies.  We created a Fordham family petition and have collected over 1,200+ signatures so far. There are also separate faculty and student petitions that have been created and that have also gotten many signatures.

All are welcome and encouraged to sign the petitions below. 

- Anonymous Mom of a Fordham Junior

If you know Fordham family members or alumni, encourage them to sign this petition:

If you know a Fordham student, encourage them to sign this petition:

If you know a Fordham faculty or staff member, encourage them to sign this petition.