Skip to main content
We may receive compensation from affiliate partners for some links on this site. Read our full Disclosure here.

Yale Students Say Anonymous Reporting System Has Turned School Into Orwellian ‘Surveillance State’


2,914 views

Universities have enacted some of the harshest COVID restrictions of any American institution in the past two years.

Ivy League schools are among the worst offenders of COVID tyranny against their students, who aren’t at risk of severe COVID-19 complications

Some students at Yale are warning that the myriad of restrictions and an anonymous reporting system to snitch on rule-breakers has turned the campus into a “surveillance state.”

The system allows wannabe tyrants to report their fellow students for violating the insane COVID rules enacted on school grounds.

The Washington Free Beacon explains:

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Yale University has required all students to mask indoors in public spaces. But it was 9:30 p.m on a Saturday night, and the library was deserted. With no one within at least 150 feet of him, a Yale senior decided to relax with a movie—and without a mask.

It got him reported to the school’s COVID hotline.

According to the Yale senior, another student walked into the library and demanded he mask up. Since he didn’t have one on him, the senior said he would leave. As he was gathering his belongings, the other student pulled out her phone and began filming him. When the senior asked for her name, the student raised her middle finger and stormed off.

Two days later, he received a notice from the Yale administration that he had been reported for violating the school’s “Community Compact,” a set of rules put in place to “promote the health and safety of all community members.” The student was given 24 hours to provide the “Compact Review Committee” with “any relevant information” he would like it to consider during the official “evaluation” of his conduct. He was ultimately found guilty of a violation and threatened with a “public health withdrawal.”

“The [committee] has determined that your conduct posed a risk to the health and safety of yourself or other community members,” the university wrote the student two weeks later. “Should you continue to engage in behavior that violates the Yale Community Compact, you will be placed on Public Health Warning and may face more serious outcomes, including the removal of permission to be on campus.”

According to university documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the incident in the library took place on December 4, 2021—the same night 1,000 maskless students gathered for Yale’s annual holiday dinner. A ritzy Yale tradition that had been canceled in 2020, the dinner featured lobster-laden ice sculptures and a parade of mostly masked dining hall workers, who marched the decadent culinary spread through a packed crowd of students, according to a video posted of the evening’s festivities.

Footage from the holiday dinner highlights the elitist hypocrisy:

The nonsensical, often inconsistently enforced rules have made the Yale campus a miserable place for students wishing to breathe fresh air in public spaces.

As COVID-19 cases fluctuated and reports of new variants arose, the school’s policies exceeded the threshold of neurotic.

When Delta calamity began, the school banned “close contact greetings” at club sporting events, “including handshakes, hugs, and high-fives.”

With Omicron, students had to avoid local businesses and outdoor restaurants until at least February 7th.

While some students told the Free Beacon the rules go too far, there hasn’t been an organized resistance against the policies.

That’s largely due to the anonymous reporting system turning Stasi-like students into informants for the school administration.

Although the majority of students oppose the restrictions, they’re scared to speak out in fear of shame or disciplinary action.

Summit News provided additional details:

Another student who was reported to the authorities anonymously said “I have no clue who reported me,” adding “The system has had a lot of success in keeping people scared.”

The report also notes that students are finding themselves in the crosshairs for posting unmasked photos on social media.

In an Instagram post relating how he had been reported for dining outdoors without a mask in violation of a Yale off campus dining ban, a student noted “This is too much power to put in the hands of students,” urging that “People can be petty and get classmates in trouble with standards that are changing every five minutes.”

Yale and other universities like it are microcosms of the outside world where anyone seen to be of an opinion that doesn’t match exactly with what the authorities demand is duly ‘exposed’ and ostracised.

Yale isn’t the only educational institute to enforce a “surveillance state” amongst its students.

Harvard University, Brown University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, and others have created hotlines and online forms for mini-tyrants to snitch on classmates.

Unless the “silenced majority” band together and push back against authoritarianism, universities will continue as a testing ground for an Orwellian society.



 

Join the conversation!

Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!

Hey, Noah here!

Wondering where we went?

Read this and bookmark our new site!

See you over there!

Thanks for sharing!