On August 16, in a secluded suburb on the Milwaukee metro area North Shore, a coalition of students, faculty, staff, and alumni from Marquette University marched to president Michael Lovell’s house under the watchful eyes of police and private security. The driveway was blocked off by an orange construction fence. The group had come to protest Marquette’s decision to open for face-to-face education in the midst of a global pandemic.

Through masks, they described delaying care for COVID-19 because Marquette had not offered them health insurance. They shared their fears for immunocompromised partners living amid the student body, some of whom were already holding parties unmasked and without social distancing. Others called for a union that would finally give Marquette workers a substantive voice in decisions over their own working conditions.

The demonstration came after the Lovell administration’s most recent in a series of fantastical plans that promised a safe reopening of campus. The plan commits to a wholly inadequate disease-mitigation strategy. Students will only be tested after showing symptoms, and instructors are being asked to provide online and in-person education simultaneously.