On the weekend before its fall finals, Yeshiva University, located in New York City, sent out a school-wide email informing its students that they would be mandated to receive a booster shot for the COVID-19 vaccine in order to return for the spring semester.

YU still plans to enforce mask-wearing and testing weekly for everyone, even the boosted.

Prior to the fall semester, students who were unvaccinated were told that getting a COVID-19 vaccine would allow them to take off the mask, to not be forced to test weekly, and most importantly, students would not be forced to take a COVID-19 booster shot. With the spread of the Delta variant, YU reversed its promises to leave the vaccinated alone and resumed testing and masking for everyone.

As the Omicron variant surges, YU has now mandated a booster shot, and now a petition is demanding that YU pull back its requirement.

“As the Omicron variant surges,” the petition reads, “YU has inexplicably mandated a booster shot, even as this variant is the most evasive of our vaccines yet (we all know friends and family who got Omicron despite their vaccines or even boosters). With this decision, YU has essentially rendered its twice-dosed students and faculty members as ‘unvaccinated.’”

The petition continues, “While we respect the students who have decided to get a booster shot of their own volition, there is a plethora of YU students who do not want the booster shot forcefully injected into their bodies. We recognize that if we comply yet again, the administration will never stop with the mandates. It is time to say enough is enough.”