The rule was suspended in March because the pandemic forced classes to be closed. Classes, by nature, stick a larger number of people into very confined spaces for an extended period of time. Laws in most places make the types of classes previously held illegal. There is simply insufficient space and human resources to hold classes as before. The exemption remained in place until Monday with no updates despite universities continuously seeking guidance through the spring and summer. On Monday, universities were given 2 weeks to comply with the directive above.
Universities can be huge organizations with 50,000 students, hundreds of buildings, thousands of employees. Scheduling a football season or an airline schedule is childs play compared to scheduling a university class offering in normal times, and it is tenfold more difficult now. Many universities chose to operate in a fully online mode. This includes Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Cal system. They decided that since 75% of instruction has to be done online anyway because of physical limitations due to space and distancing, it was better to do all online and to do it very well. It is similar to trying to field a basketball team and a football team simultaneously trying to do inline and in-person simultaneously. Now, in 2 weeks, they must redo a vast amount of things. They are right to sue.
Imagine changing MPG standards for vehicles and giving 3 months to comply.
And in the meantime, hospitals are filling across the south and west and the deaths are perking back up. Yes of course we need to inject 30 million college students packed closely together into this situation for absolutely no reason at all because we aren't afraid, just stupid.
