ACU made history Saturday when the men’s basketball team advanced to the Second Round of March Madness. The university held a watch party in Wildcat stadium to cheer on the team from home and though students were encouraged to social distance, masks were not required to take part in the event. 

Obviously, this caused a lot of controversy and hate towards the university from students, faculty, staff and strangers on social media. 

This is a stark contrast, and frankly, an issue, when compared to ACU’s response to Gov. Abbott’s removal of all mask mandates. ACU promised to keep the mandate on campus in order to keep the community safe and proceeded to throw that out the window by hosting a major event, which has the potential to be a super spreader. 

However, despite the frustrations surrounding the university’s actions, this has just further shown that responsibility ultimately falls on us to make the right decisions. 

Masks are a choice. You may feel the need to wear one or you may not feel the need to wear one, but regardless we clearly cannot rely on someone else to tell us which decision is right or wrong. Masks have become something people need to start taking personal responsibility for. They also need to start making decisions that are best going to benefit them and keep themselves and those around them safe. 

We can no longer trust institutions to make decisions that benefit us, and we have to take responsibility for the risks we are willing to take. 

The university’s decisions may not sit right with a lot of people in the community, and we can only hope we don’t see a spike in the next few weeks, but it just shows that now the decision to be safe and keep our community safe falls solely on us.