Chico,
A couple things....
What I'm attempting to point out is a separation between; Covid policy planning, implementation and communication by the Ivys. My point is the Covid planning and implementation by Ivys and others is as I would expect it (no surprises here)....again athletics is not a huge part of the overall University so they are going to provide one policy for the whole student body irregardless of extracurricular activity. People go to these schools to get a great education...that is their core value prop and they are sticking to it. My other point is the Covid communicaton has been terrible, and clearly everybody agrees.
Your question: But I'm confused by parts of your post: Do you think the Ivies ought to treat athletes differently than other students? Or put another way, should they treat other student activities differently than sports?
It isn't what I think that is important. What is important is what it is....clearly the Ivys treat their athletes as normal students first and foremost. Athletes get no preferential treatment or advantages...that is pretty much etched in stone. Nobody gets any preferential treatment or advantages. My understanding is they are treating student activities no differently than sports which is consistent with their policy. As RJM points out, being an athlete can actually be detriment as faculty and students initially look down on athletes until they prove themselves in the classroom. My son witnessed this first hand and I know others that experienced it. In the eyes of the President, his campus is made up of one big student body. There is no right or wrong here. It is important to know ahead of time what that student-athlete experience is going to look like at these schools.
This is purely conjecture on my part, but I'm willing to bet someone a pint of Guinness that the Ivy University Presidents handed their policies down to each Student Affairs Director and the Athletic Directors to see if they could make sports work. They did a risk assessment, and made a recommendation back to the President before he got together with his peers. ADs just aren't going to have a lot of political juice among these schools and that is probably where it died on the vine. If you put yourself in the ADs shoes, how are you going to financially justify spending a lot of money (OPEX) and taking a large risk that can do very little for the overall University? I think other schools are more willing to take that risk and ADs are better positioned to influence it. My two younger sons went to an ACC school and a Big South school. Their ADs and HCs are very well known and very well connected. Any body who follows sports in our area knows who they are. They are playing baseball this Spring. Again, its not right or wrong it is just the way it is.
Again, JMO.