It doesn’t matter that these are not ‘new regulations’. The way that they are currently being carried out in light of a global pandemic reeks of xenophobia and partisanship. That is why our peer institutions are banding together to launch a legal challenge against these policies. People in academia across the US are concerned and enraged. Why should we tacitly accept what is going on simply because these might not be ‘new regulations?’ The current pandemic is, at the very least, an extenuating circumstance. Is the excuse we are going to fall back on ‘well, you should have read the small text before getting your visa, and you deserve what you get?’
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/us/student-visas-coronavirus.html
Even if the University of Chicago thinks they are doing a good enough job, they haven’t told the rest of the student population what they are actually doing/planning. That is why tons of students are feeling like they are being abandoned. What they are seeing is that the University can accept the dollars of international students when times are good and leave them in the lurch when political tides turn.
It’s not even certain how many faculty members are even willing to teach in-person classes. University of Chicago isn’t forcing its faculty to teach in person, so they need to figure out a better way to help these students other than just crossing their fingers and hoping that there are enough in-person classes for everyone.