Student and Parents to Lead Mass Protest
IU Students and Parents to Lead Mass Protest of University’s Vaccine Mandate on Thursday, June 10 on the Historic IU Campus in Bloomington, Home of the Hoosiers
On May 21, Indiana University announced that it will require all students, faculty and staff to get the Covid-19 vaccine, saying it’s the only way the university can return to having in-person classes. Exemptions, IU said, will be “strictly limited” to a “very narrow set of criteria” to include medical exemptions and “documented and significant religious exemptions.”
The mandate came with a requirement that students, faculty, and staff upload a photo or a scan showing proof of vaccination. It also came with a heavy threat – that those who do not get the vaccine will see their classes canceled, have their email accounts and pay cards (Crimson Cards) cut off, and, for staff, will be immediately fired.
The announcement shocked thousands of IU students, parents, and long-time employees of the university who quickly organized and formed The IU Family for Choice, not Mandates, Inc. and hired an attorney to represent them – famed First Amendment lawyer Jim Bopp, an IU graduate.
While IU was forced to soften the mandate somewhat after the enormous outcry, the policy still represents a completely unacceptable abridgement of freedom that cannot be justified. The university’s raffling off of Apple Watches, AirPods, free tuition, parking vouchers, and Colts tickets to students and staff who agree to show proof of vaccination is an obvious and manipulative ploy to get people to give up their right to choose, and possibly risk their long-term health.
On Thursday, June 10 at 1 p.m., during the IU Board of Trustees meeting, IU students, parents, and staff will hold a large protest and “Rally for Medical Freedom” at Sample Gates on the IU-Bloomington campus to insist that the university immediately retract the mandate and drop all mask requirements as well as mitigation testing for Covid-19. Kari Bundy of Children’s Health Defense will be one of the featured speakers, along with former Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate Lucy Brenton; president of The IU Family for Choice Not Mandates Ann Dorris; candidate for the IU Board of Trustees Margaret Menge; and former nursing home employee Shawn (Skelton) Vidiella of Southern Indiana, whose convulsions following vaccination in January went viral in online videos. Children’s Health Defense, the organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will livestream the rally starting at about 12:45 p.m. Please contact Andrea Ford at (812) 606-1678 with any questions. For more information, including where to find a link to the livestream of the protest, please visit www.Families4Choice.org