Hi all, I just wanted to reach out to let you know we’ve just passed 1,078 signatures on our petition. Thank you for taking a stand for truth, righteousness, and freedom. However, when the petition was presented to Calvin, President LeRoy responded with the following. Please continue to email, call, and apply pressure to the university (contact information located at the end of the update!) and continue to stand against the discrimination and segregation of the unvaccinated. What the university and administration is doing is NOT ok.

Email received from Calvin University's President LeRoy:

Dear Stephanie,

Thank you for writing to me. I want to acknowledge that I have received and read your message. I understand and appreciate the criticisms you have of our expectations for a safe return to campus this fall. My primary obligation to the Calvin community is to ensure that the Christian educational mission is carried out in person this year in a way that ensures the health and safety of the entire community of students, faculty, and staff. We have also tried to listen carefully to the needs of all members of our community and to adjust our practices and policies where we can find a better solution. We will continue to do so.

We have learned a lot over the past year about the effective management of the virus. We know that unvaccinated people who live and learn in our community pose a far greater risk transmitting the infection than those who are vaccinated. We also recognize that some who are unvaccinated wish to remain unvaccinated for a variety of reasons. Our policy allows students to freely choose to opt out of vaccination as long as they are willing to bear the risk of the potential added cost that the decision to remain unvaccinated introduces to themselves and to the community. I understand that you object to this. I also know that there are members of our community who are vaccinated who object to the fact that our policy and approach allows unvaccinated to live and learn in the Calvin community without being vaccinated. This is an allowance we are making out of respect for individual decisions on this matter. I have considered the contents of message and determined that Calvin’s policies as communicated in prior communications will continue to be implemented.

I am happy to meet with you, but do not want to give you false hope that such a meeting will change my position on this matter. I sincerely hope you will join the community this year under the conditions outlined by these policies, but I also understand that you may decide that you do not wish to do so. This is not what I hope for. I would be disappointed if that were your decision, but I do understand.

Sincerely,

Michael K. Le Roy, Ph.D.

President

Calvin University

3201 Burton Street SE | Grand Rapids, MI  49546

president@calvin.edu | 616-526-6100

responseteam@calvin.edu (Calvin's COVID Response Team)

Here's the link to share: https://www.change.org/p/president-michael-le-roy-immediate-cease-of-calvin-university-s-discriminatory-policies-against-the-unvaccinated