The religious school is Virginia has more than 50,000 pf its 100,000 attending classes on campus…
It is the first major school in the media to return its student while the Caronavirus virus is still active….
One would assume that religious schools are exempt from the states request that social distancing be followed .…
Liberty University in Virginia welcomed students back to campus Monday amid criticism of its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., for the decision during the coronavirus pandemic.
More than 1,100 students returned Monday following spring break, according to Scott Lamb, a spokesman for the university in Lynchburg. Falwell said he met with many of them.
“They were talking about being glad to be back,” Falwell said in a statement Monday published by the university news service. “I was joking about how they pretty much had the whole place to themselves, and told all of them to enjoy it.”
At least one professor at the university has criticized the move, writing in an op-ed that “Falwell’s lack of concern” about the pandemic puts faculty, staff and others in the city of Lynchburg at risk.
In addition, an online petition seeks Falwell’s removal over his alleged failure to take COVID-19 seriously.
The private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg has a total of 100,000 students, the school’s website says, of whom about 46,000 are undergraduates, according to the U.S. News & World Report. About 57 percent of Liberty’s residential students live on campus, the university says.
The students returned on the same day Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced that all K-12 schools in the state will remain closed for the remainder of the school year. Northam, who is a doctor, said the closures were necessary to slow the spread of the virus.
As of Tuesday morning, Virginia had 290 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, 45 hospitalizations and six deaths.
Falwell said the decision to have students return to campus was not made lightly.
Is he looking for a new pool boy?