By Christine Black at Brownstone dot org.

"In November of 2020 I remember sitting on the trunk of my car, parked on the top level of the parking deck because it was one of the only places with no campus police surveilling us, and thinking what if…I jumped off? That's how bad it was. But then I thought that my mom would be so sad. That kept me from the ledge," said 25-year-old Houston Reese, who attended Biola University in Los Angeles County, California from 2019 – 2023, a county he said had one of the hardest lockdowns in the country during the Covid period.

"I was heavily depressed with what was taken from us, with the restrictions and with not being able to be with friends," he said. He feels like one of the lucky students, though, because outcomes for him could have been much worse.

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director James Redfield said in the summer of 2020 that far more teens and young people were dying of suicide and drug overdoses than from Covid. Doctors and epidemiologists who authored and published the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020 advised against school closings, calling them a "grave injustice;" advocated for protection of very old and sick people; and advised that young and healthy people should continue normal life because they were at little risk from the virus. Since then, many scientists have agreed that panic, fear, and severe restrictions in young people's lives during the Covid period were mistakes and caused grave harms. Many others have remained silent.

And yet, recommendations against lockdowns for college students did not curtail mandates and restrictive policies that harmed them. College offers young people a time to question authorities, to explore new ideas, to have adventures with friends while socializing and bonding. Classical liberal arts education embraces the ideals of sharpening students' critical and creative thinking; provoking them to examine divergent perspectives; and teaching them to strengthen their oral and written arguments. Yet, during the Covid period, colleges and universities all over the country followed government and bureaucratic mandates while discouraging and even punishing students' critical thinking and questioning.

When Houston returned to school in fall of 2020, it felt like a ghost town to him with students working on classes online from their rooms. Students were forced to wear masks outside, he said, as campus police surveilled them. On the first offense, they were fined, and on the second, they were sent home, "as 19-year-olds," he said incredulously. He described regularly carrying snacks while walking outside, so he could remove the mandated face mask and breathe freely. Late one night, he visited outside with his cousin whom he hadn't seen in a long time. They sat about 15 feet apart, talking. A campus police officer approached to force them to apply the mask. They said they were eating.

"You're not eating consistently enough," the guard said. "Put the mask on."

Police banging on dorm room doors when college friends gathered; secret tip lines college administrators provided for turning in non-compliant fellow students; administrators barring students from leaving campus for months; teacher firings; student expulsions; shaming and bullying the non-compliant – Covid-era college students shared stories like these.

Face Masks While Cross-Country Running; Required Covid Shots

A cross-country runner, Houston described being made to wear the mask while running outside in LA County, but as soon as the team ran the two miles into Orange County, the rules changed.

"Coach would turn around and tell us we could take the masks off," he said. At the end of the 2020 school year, Houston, a Political Science major, dropped running, failed two classes, and almost lost his scholarship. He left campus for a while. Upon his return, vaccine mandates rolled out.

"I didn't feel the vaccine was necessary for me as a 20-year-old with a 34 resting ...