This is tragically normal

We should ask how higher education can help end our violent culture rather than focusing on how individual higher education organizations respond to violence.

In the aftermath of mass shootings, we go through the same cliched response. First, we scramble, then we recriminate while lamenting how common these events are. My experience proximate to the mass shooting at Michigan State University followed the same pattern. So it is right to assess how well MSU responded in the short and longer terms. However, I don't think how an individual organization responds is the most important question about higher education and mass violence. Instead, we should consider why this consensus on most campuses on the need for better laws and a renewed culture goes unheeded. The work is hard, but we in higher education have ideas and the capability to help the country ease this epidemic of violence.

A school night

At home, my spouse and I, who both work at MSU, were reading bedtime stories to our young children when our phones blew up with notifications from MSU. Then, not too far away, we could hear sirens blaring. We scrambled for information:

• Twitter

• Online police scanners

• The local news

• The text network with colleagues on the front lines of the response

There were some false reports and confusion in the first hours. But the facts of the matter emerged pretty quickly, and the MSU police held a press conference less than three hours after the first shots and before the suspect, who later died by suicide, was located by law enforcement. MSU’s notification to "run, hide, and fight" was blasted out within minutes of the shots. The police responded swiftly and likely prevented further casualties by their speedy arrival at the scene. The official information was timely and accurate.

The media and government officials scrutinize organizations after these events. Sometimes, investigators identify tragic organizational failures. That could happen when we look at what happened at MSU. And, of course, we will learn lessons about how to do better. In my early judgment, MSU performed effectively under impossible conditions. Law enforcement, the media, campus community members, and their loved ones all converged on the scene of an active shooting. Swiftly, law enforcement and university leadership set up command centers and triage points. Resources are in place to support community members experiencing trauma. The organization responded as it was supposed to when a shooting happens.

The mass shooting at Michigan State University was heartbreaking, horrific, and terrifying. We are sad and angry. But what happened at MSU was completely normal in the United States of America. Unfortunately, being ordinary doesn't minimize the tragedy. It makes it worse. What happened was a devastating loss for families and a tragedy for our community. Thousands of people were traumatized. It is also part of a national crisis. An unacceptably routine part of American life. One more count to an indictment of our government, our culture, and yes, some of our fellow citizens who tolerate these massacres to accommodate their worldviews. 

We lost three members of our community, all undergraduate students. Five more were critically wounded. All of them went to college to contribute productively and pursue their ambitions. Most people in the United States go to college within a year of graduating high school. Going to college is an ordinary thing to do. And while campuses like MSU's buildings and grounds can feel safe, even serene, their general pacific state is probabilistic. Violence is unlikely to erupt at any particular place at any specific time, but it could happen anywhere at any time. The shooting could have been at a dance class, a movie theater, a hospital, or an elementary school. According to the Gun Violence Archive, in 2023, we have already endured 68 mass shootings that have claimed 104 lives and injured 273 others. About one and a half mass shootings happen every day in the USA. Mass violence seamlessly integrates with our public lives. 

Let’s ask the right questions

Earlier, I talked with a reporter who asked me what I thought of the university. I get called to comment on these things because I am not shy to criticize my employer on the record. For the record, in my assessment, MSU has done well so far. Reporting on how MSU responded is both inevitable and justified. But I told the reporter that I think MSU's organizational response is not the most critical question. The question is why organizations are expected to be prepared for mass violence. Universities are too often sites of violence, but they are always sites of debate where scholars and young people converse on critical social issues. Universities are proving grounds for ideas that make their way into the public sphere. The need for gun control measures and other efforts to correct our culture to de-normalize mass violence is a consensus on campus. Consensus does not mean unanimity of opinion or agreement on what should be done next. But the large majority of the university community - like the majority of the public nationwide - agrees that legislative and cultural change is necessary. 

The cultural right and GOP have recently increased their attacks on higher education. They often say that universities are sites of groupthink. That is not true. What is true is that people with diverse views have come to the consensus that our gun laws and culture are unacceptable. Because they refuse to accept that consensus, they deflect and say the problem is the university itself. We are a soft target, after all. Too few of us are armed. Maybe we didn't lock the doors. While a rigorous assessment of how MSU responded to the crisis is justified (as it always is), let's center the problem on the organization. The problem is our culture and politics in the USA. Universities are ready and willing to start working on solutions to the problem. Let us do it. Let campus consensus make its way into the public sphere, legislation, and culture. 

US higher education, including MSU, is not perfect. It has deep problems. But higher education is also one of the country's most brilliant, successful, and promising institutions. So let our ordinary virtues confront our pathologies.