Virginia Tech Massacre

The Virginia Tech administration needed to remove Cho from campus long ago, yet they failed to act. They were more concerned with the image of their school than the safety of their students. Which school is next because their administration refuses to secure the campus because it may not look good or may cost them a few dollars? Whose children are in danger now because school officials are more concerned with their public relations department than their police department? Virginia Tech is not the only school to sweep crimes and complaints under the rug. Colleges all over the country continually downplay the violence that occurs on their campuses. Whether they underreport, misreport, or do not report the crimes, their official crime logs are usually unreliable and invalid. This makes it difficult for parents to know what their children are potentially getting into. Without objective and transparent crime reporting on college campuses, nobody will ever know what schools are safe and which ones are not. Until proper legislation is passed and school officials begin to take crime and violence on their campuses seriously, we will see more and more incidents like last week’s massacre.

Atlanta lawyer Amanda Farahany was hired several years ago by a student at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia who was allegedly raped on campus but could not get the police to prosecute because the school would not cooperate and turn over incident reports and other findings. Farahany discovered firsthand while representing this student that statistics provided in the campus crime log didn't match the school's crime reports. “We know that one in four college women are a victim of sexual assault. When universities are reporting zero rapes on campus, we know that just isn't possible,” Farahany said, citing several surveys, including a 1991 study of 7,000 college students by researchers Mary Koss and Mary Harvey. The point is that we have some work to do.

Besides improved legislation, more transparency by school administrations, and better campus security, we need teachers and students to do their part as well. And I mean physically. During Cho’s killing spree, there had to have been moments when one or many could have charged Cho and stopped the shooting. Students and teachers (and really, all of us) need to defend themselves and protect the lives of those around them during future massacres like these. During the 9/11 attacks we saw heroic acts by men and woman in the air and in New York and Washington, DC. I just wish we had seen more of that in Virginia last week. And I expect next time we will. In fact I think we should demand it of each other.