When a College Employee Shoots a Student

Circumstances aside, the fact of a shooting by a campus police officer—believed to be the first at the university in more than 30 years—comes as national attention is trained on questions of school safety; one proposal that has dominated the conversation is to arm teachers and provide more resources for elementary- and secondary-school officers. College campuses faced a similar question in the 1960s and 1970s, amid widespread student unrest—in part the result of desegregation and the Vietnam War—and the police response to it. And college students today continue to protest the result: armed campus police forces.