‘This will be, for most Canadian faculty, the first if not the only real test of their integrity and dignity, and their purpose as scholars and intellectuals. It is absolutely essential that they not fail this test…’

Max Forte, a Canadian professor of sociology and anthropology, has published a Statement of Non-Compliance with Mandatory Vaccination in Canadian Universities.

This document is as important as it is brilliant. A tsunami of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies is washing over higher education, Forte says it’s his duty to encourage united “non-compliance with such measures.”

How is it, he wonders, that institutions that spend their days denouncing discrimination, are now openly discriminating on the basis of medical status?

How is it that people who spend their professional lives critiquing historical wrongs are meekly falling into line with “government demands for harsh, segregationist, and punitive measures”?

Forte isn’t the only person pointing out that coercion is not consent. Or that forced vaccination is an obvious violation of the big picture, ethical framework imposed on universities themselves. (Professors must obtain the voluntary and informed consent of anyone being studied, examined, or experimented on. Anything less contravenes well-established research ethics.)

But Forte’s arguments are especially crisp and persuasive. Systematically, he examines the many misconceptions embraced by Canadian health authorities. These are not small matters. Our collective well being hangs in the balance. In his words,

This will be, for most Canadian faculty, the first if not the only real test of their integrity and dignity, and their purpose as scholars and intellectuals. It is absolutely essential that they not fail this test… [bold added]

There are many infectious diseases. Hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis, AIDS/HIV, influenza. Do we really want to live in a society in which everyone thinks the health status of everyone else is their business? Where bureaucrats, employers, and officials of every description constantly demand private medical info? Where those waiting to buy a coffee on campus are segregated into different lines?

There are times to stand up. To be bravely non-conformist. At universities around the world, that time is now.

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Read Forte’s entire statement here (backed up here)

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