Well, it’s come to this: Brigham Young University-Idaho has warned its students not to intentionally expose themselves to COVID-19 in order to get more money for their plasma from local blood centers (East Idaho News online, October 12).
In response, students at the Mormon school in Rexburg, Idaho are poised to do battle with the administration. Here is Jason Husker-Du, a junior Political Science major and chair of the undergraduate student government’s Che Guevara Revolutionary Task Force: “Show me where it says in the Book of Mormon, the Golden Plates, or the United States Constitution that voluntarily contracting an illness in the name of financial profit is forbidden. You can’t show me, because there’s no mention of that topic, and certainly no mention of COVID-19, in any of those sources. Ergo, you can’t stop us. I’m pretty sure that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett would agree with me on this, strict constructionist that she is.
“Simply put, BYU has no right to tell us what we can do with our immune system or our plasma. It’s bad enough that they require us to remain virginal until marriage. Have you seen Willow Taffeta-Newsom, my girlfriend who plays on the volleyball team? Oh. My. God.”
Yesterday, the University administration blinked. School officials announced that they would allow students to embrace the coronavirus, as long as they tithed their plasma earnings to BYU, with the funds being used to buy iPads for the school’s new Esports concentration in its Bachelor’s Pre-Med program.
Husker-Du’s reply: “Sure, we’ll consider their offer, as long as they’re also willing to discuss our proposal for premarital-sex vouchers for all undergraduates. The voucher topic has to be on the table, and really, really soon. Like, before this Saturday night. I’m not kidding.”