USA Today
by Lindsay Schnell
September 10, 2021
Joseph Fu knows it’s a bold move, but the University of Georgia math professor is fed up.
At UGA in Athens, there are no mask or vaccine mandates – unless you’re in one of Fu’s calculus classes, where he’s requiring masks for all students who show up in person. That’s at odds with the Georgia state university system’s rules, where they’ve told instructors they can’t require students to wear masks, but merely suggest it.
Fu ignored that instruction, instead writing the classroom mask rule into his syllabus. In doing so, the tenured professor who’s spent 36 years at UGA admits he’s essentially daring the administration to fire him.
His colleagues, Fu said, “think I’m a little bit crazy. But a lot of them are also afraid” about being on a campus where there are no mask or vaccine mandates. “I see the fear in them every day.”