A Bible college in Sydney has announced plans to enforce a vaccination mandate for their campus next year, despite the state government not requiring such measures for tertiary institutions.
Derek Brotherson, Principal at the Sydney Missionary Bible College, informed students on Monday that any adult who comes onto the campus will need to have received at least two doses of a Covid vaccine.
The “temporary mandate” will apply to all staff members, students, residents, and visitors unless a medical exemption can be provided.
“You might think, the government haven’t mandated vaccinations, so legally we don’t need to either,” Brotherson told students in a video message. “But actually, it’s not as simple as that. It’s more complicated.
“It is true that there is no blanket vaccine mandate in tertiary settings here in New South Wales as there is in Victoria,” he said, but noted the need to formulate a Covid safe plan for the campus.
The decision to bar the unvaccinated as part of that plan came at the advice of an “expert” the board engaged to help formulate a procedure that demonstrated the college was “taking certain steps to discharge our duty of care.”
Brotherson said the board’s decision to exclude unvaccinated people from the campus was made with a heavy heart.
“It’s mind-boggling,” an unvaccinated student told Caldron Pool. “We’re not talking about banning the infected, the unhealthy, or the sick.
“What we’re talking about here is excluding healthy people who, for personal reasons, have decided not to take a vaccine that doesn’t even stop people from contracting or spreading Covid to others.”
Commenting on the college’s move, Presbyterian minister Tony Archer warned about a growing trend among Christian organisations of imposing more restrictions on the public than required.
“There’s a special kind of lunacy that sees Christian organisations choose to go even further than the government to impose and entrench segregation,” Archer said.
“Worst of all this seems to be contagious and encourages governments to keep extending draconian measures.”