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Nov. 1, 2023 Editor, The News-Gazette: I’m sitting in the law school parking lot as my friends wait for the all-clear. Group messages are pinging around with rumor shreds and a healthy mix of gallows humor to keep spirits up as they sit with heads held low in their unlit classrooms.
These students come from all over the country. It is hard to think of a more succinct indictment of the gun violence epidemic than the fact that each of these law students likely has a “hometown shooter” story of their own.
Among the messages sent are photos of their classroom doors. For some of my friends, their fears are especially heightened - and rightfully so. Belts are now being used to secure doors with no locks, a pitiful symbol of how fragile the situation really is.
As pictures of these makeshift security measures make their rounds on WhatsApp, the gallows humor turns to a call for the guillotine. Students become more upset at the idea that - should this shelter-in-place order turn into a worst-case scenario - the administration of Washington and Lee refused to do the bare minimum to protect their student’s lives - put locks on the doors.
Another notification blips across my screen. Photos of armed officers entering a classroom mean the building is finally being scanned room by room. The students take great pleasure in informing them that there was no lock on the door. The responders risking their lives to enter a possible active shooter situation stare bewildered that a room like this could have no lock.
Meanwhile, I wait outside. I feel helpless as my friends virtually huddle under their desks through WhatsApp notifications. But that’s what this community does. They support each other. They share laughter every day and homecooked meals every night. It’s the reason my partner and I moved 17 hours to Lexington from southeast Texas (not far from Santa Fe, mind you). At W&L, everyone wants the same thing but is unwilling to take it from each other. A law school with this kind of culture should be protected at all costs.
It is a shame that the administration doesn’t agree.
CHRISTIAN MADISON Lexington
