The College Fix

Previously said it could tell students in other states to wear masks

Yale University officials continue to insist that its student handbook trumps state and local laws.

The Ivy League university has banned students from eating at legally operating restaurants off-campus.

“Students may not visit New Haven businesses or eat at local restaurants (even outdoors) except for curbside pickup,” the Yale Daily News wrote in a Facebook post Monday. The campus newspaper summarized an email from the administration that laid out the spring semester plans.

The campus paper posted a longer excerpt of the email after it attracted media attention. The email also says that students should feel free to go for runs or walks around the area.

Commenters on the post mocked the university.

“Welcome to college, now go to your room your grounded!” one person wrote. “Imagine thinking you have the power to tell people that pay your salary that they can’t go out to eat,” another said.

The rules are telling about the consequences of attending Yale. Residents of New Haven, Connecticut are allowed to go into a local restaurant to have a meal.

But residents of New Haven who also go to Yale are not allowed to do that. So going to Yale gives you fewer freedoms, simple as that.

This is not the first time that Yale’s administrators have said they have the ability to ban legal, off-campus behavior in the name of COVID prevention.

The Ivy League university has previously told students that they must remain masked while conducting school business, even if they are in a locality that does not require masking, such as a completely different state.

The requirement hindered film students who wanted to make movies without masked actors, but were told that even if a locality did not require masking, Yale still would enforce its mandate.

MORE: Universities continue to put students in prison-like conditions

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