Summary
In March 2020, colleges and universities across the United States ended in-person instruction as the COVID-19 pandemic descended. Millions of American college students scrambled to finish coursework and professors navigated teaching online. The fall poses a new challenge: how to bring students back to campus safely.
As they navigate this new world, universities must guard against the technosolutionism being offered in the form of technology-assisted contact tracing. These apps and wearables – relying on technologies like GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi location tracking – offer a false sense of security and belie the truth: high-tech contact tracing will fail. More importantly, any form of contact tracing that fails to safeguard users’ privacy will be a dangerous distraction from evidence-based models.
Universities have a unique moral and legal duty of care to create a safe educational environment for students and professors. When educational institutions take short-sighted shortcuts in responding to COVID-19, they not only imperil their campus community, they also undermine the very place of higher education in American life. But for students and staff, the harms are far from philosophical. If colleges and universities fail to protect their campuses, the results will be fatal.
