Wenstrup, Select Subcommittee Republicans investigate university COVID-19 policies that threaten student well-being

Washington, D.C. – Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) has joined forces with all Select Subcommittee Republicans to shed light on coercive and potentially harmful COVID-19 policies that are reemerging at the University of Maryland. 

Under the university’s new directive, Maryland students who test positive for COVID-19 are to be immediately removed from their dorms and forced into isolation, either at a nearby hotel or by boarding a flight home presumably at their own expense. 

Considering the University of Maryland received hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 aid, this new directive raises questions about how the University utilized its federal relief funds and how it plans to enforce this highly destructive directive.

“…Maryland seems to be reinstituting the same disastrous policies it implemented during the beginning of the pandemic at the expense of its students. According to public reports, Maryland is removing students who test positive for COVID-19 from their dorms without providing temporary housing accommodations and sending them to their “permanent” homes—likely with their older, more at-risk, parents.  In other cases, students—as mandated by the Directive—are required to isolate at a nearby hotel.  Presumably, it’s the students’ parents—not your university—that are footing the bill, which begs the question of how Maryland spent the federal Coronavirus dollars it received,” wrote Chairman Wenstrup.

The Select Subcommittee’s investigation previously revealed that prolonged school closures and hybrid learning programs contributed to a mental health crisis, historic learning loss, and decreased physical health among America’s youth. Reinstituting policies that will have a similar effect on students is not only counterproductive, but also proves nonsensical when considering available science and data.