WATCH: PROF. GIORDANO: Masking ‘inhibits the learning environment in the classroom’

Campus Reform Higher Education Fellow Nicholas Giordano recently appeared on The National Desk to discuss mask mandates at colleges and universities. 

The National Desk asked Giordano about the universities that have reinstated indoor masking, including the State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase. 

“I come at this from the perspective of a parent, a teacher, a political scientist, and someone [who] worked in emergency management and worked on pandemic plans,” Giordano said. 

Giordano told The National Desk that masking “inhibits the learning environment in the classroom.” He referred to his Campus Reform op-ed, which argued that mask mandates made his classroom “lifeless.” 

[RELATED: College reintroduces indoor masking as rest of university system sticks with ‘advisory’]

“The second the mandate was lifted, my students began participating, they began talking to each other again, [and] we started to see more activity on the campus,” Giordano said. 

The National Desk asked Giordano about a statement from “the National Institutes of Health saying schools with mandatory masking…had less in-school transmission [of] COVID than schools that had the optional or partial masking.” 

Giordano argued that the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control have not taken into account schools that used other measures, such as social distancing, to prevent the spread of COVID. 

“They can’t really point to masks and say, ‘Well, masks were the things that did it,’” Giordano said. 

Watch the full video above.