It’s Time to Make Campus Mask-Optional

By Jack Fencl ‘22

Since students returned to Lexington in August 2020, Washington and Lee University has required all individuals to wear masks in indoor spaces on campus. Few disputed the necessity of such a policy last year, when Covid-19 vaccines were either unavailable or not widely accessible. However, W&L is in a very different place with regards to Covid than it was this time last year, and a new approach is necessary to protect the health and well-being of our community while also ensuring a desperately needed return to normalcy.

Over 98 percent of campus is vaccinated, and as of January 31, the university has mandated that all students, faculty, and staff receive booster shots. The data unequivocally show that these vaccines are effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death. As a result, Covid poses much less danger to the W&L community today than it has at any point during the pandemic.

W&L’s policy response to Covid should serve the needs of the current situation, not the circumstances of last year. When it comes to a few issues, the university has in fact abandoned outdated policies, as evidenced by the school’s recent update to contact tracing protocols. Previously, the university went to great lengths to identify and inform those who may have been exposed to Covid. Now, the university has replaced that strategy in favor of personal responsibility: “Individuals who test positive will now be responsible for notifying their close contacts.” While the previous contact tracing system made sense in the past, the ever-evolving nature of the situation rendered the previous protocols obsolete, and as a result the COVID-19 Committee rightly implemented a policy that better matched our campus’ needs.

 Although a few policies, like contact tracing protocols, have been updated to reflect the current environment, others remain stubbornly stuck in the past. University masking policy in particular is overdue for an update.

It is time for W&L to adopt a mask-optional policy. Under such a system, individuals could continue to wear masks if they want, but would no longer be compelled to do so under a university-wide mandate.

For a small number of individuals, wearing a mask in the course of daily life continues to make sense. Those who are elderly or immunocompromised, for example, may opt to continue to wear a high-quality KN-95 mask to keep themselves safe. The same is true for people who are possibly symptomatic with Covid. If you have reason to believe you may be sick, wearing a mask can help reduce the odds you spread the virus.

However, for the vast majority of people, masks are little more than security theater. This is especially true given the reality that many of the masks people wear on campus are low quality and ineffective. Leana Wen, a professor of health policy at George Washington University, put it well when she said, “Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations.”

The COVID-19 Committee acknowledged this fact in a community-wide email in late December when they wrote, “KN-95 masks have been shown to be more effective than cloth masks” and announced that the university would be providing KN-95 masks to anyone who wanted them. Encouraging and facilitating the use of KN-95s among those who still want to wear masks is a reasonable step for the university to take and is a practice that should continue under a mask-optional policy.

Some may object to a mask-optional policy using the “my mask protects you, your mask protects me” philosophy that was emblematic of public health messaging early in the pandemic. However, while such guidance may have made sense at the time, the logic no longer applies. Joseph Allen, a professor of public health at Harvard, was spot on when he wrote, “Let’s dispense with the notion that masks are only protective if everyone is wearing them.” He also noted that “for anyone who fears moving away from universal masking, the great news is that they can continue to wear an N95 mask — along with being vaccinated and boosted — and live a low-risk life regardless of what others around them are doing.” This is precisely the goal of a mask-optional policy: it allows individuals to make a determination about what is right for them while also ensuring the safety of the W&L community. 

Many agree with the position that masks are no longer necessary but continue to support universal masking on campus anyway. They believe widespread masking helps make some people feel more comfortable and claim that this justifies a mandate because wearing a mask is only a “minor inconvenience.” However, this argument misses the fact that there are real costs associated with pervasive masking on campus.

Masks tend to inhibit normal communication by muffling a speaker’s words and removing many non-verbal facial cues from conversation, both of which hinder the educational experience that a small-class liberal arts environment is designed to provide. These factors also make campus a less friendly environment than it should be, as evidenced by the precipitous decline in the speaking tradition since the pandemic began.

None of this is to say that masks are causing enormous problems in classrooms or that they are singularly responsible for worsening social relations on campus. But just as it would be ridiculous to claim that masks impose a substantial burden on daily life, so too is it absurd to say that they are completely harmless. Masks are unpleasant to wear and impose real, if relatively minor, costs.

If masks were still important for protecting the health and well-being of the community, then requiring them on campus would be a no-brainer. But masks are unnecessary for the vast majority of people at W&L, especially at this point. Thus, while masking may be a “minor inconvenience,” it is nonetheless an unjustifiable burden to place on people given the complete lack of need. Fellow W&L Spectator contributor Lilly Gillespie summed it up perfectly: “It could be worse is not an excuse for bad policies.”

Simply put, the current regime of mandatory masking is unjustifiable and needs to change. A mask-optional policy would put an end to the baseless mandate while still keeping members of the W&L community safe. Living in perpetual fear of Covid is neither healthy nor practical, and it’s time W&L’s policies reflect this reality.