GWU Safety To Be Questioned at Stormy Town Hall Thursday

WASHINGTON - March 26, 2018 - PRLog -- In the wake of a report showing that GWU officials are preparing to deal with mass shootings, a second violent incident on campus from a terrorist group, riots over unpopular speakers, and other risks all too foreseeable in light of current events, but only with plans and handbooks and few concrete measures, officials are likely to face strong questions from angry students and faculty at a town hall dealing with these risks on Thursday. [NOON-1PM, 2000 H St, NW, ROOM LL101]

        "Despite what happened at Charlotte and elsewhere, our University rules still permit masked students to carry lit torches and poles to demonstrations, and neither our classroom doors nor the doors to most major buildings can be quickly locked from inside in the event of an active shooter report," says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who has crusaded for increased safety measures at GWU, and whose proposals for national school safety measures have been reported nationally.

        Banzhaf says he hopes that at the town hall there will be a number of questions about the lack of effective locks on the doors to classrooms in the buildings where law school and other classes are held.

        After watching televised videos of students trying futilely to barricade classroom doors with furniture to protect those inside from an active shooter in the building - with a few actually dying while trying -  many universities have followed the advice of a growing number of security experts and installed simple hotel-door-type locks to permit classroom doors to be locked quickly and easily from the inside.

        Noting that some classroom doors in some law school buildings can be locked - but only if a teacher with a key remembers during a crisis how to do it, and is willing to step outside into the hall where she could be seen by a gunman - Banzhaf and many experts say that locking a classroom door should be something every student can do quickly and easily, and from inside the classroom itself.  The type of swinging lock we have all come to expect from even the most inexpensive motel would be a good start, and these cost less than one student is paying for any one class.

        The lack of a similar inexpensive safety measure administrators may be questioned about at the town hall is their failure to have simple locks capable of being activated from inside the major buildings of the law school, and possibly all of the many building around campus.

        Still another concern which is likely to be aired at the town hall is the failure of GWU to learn from the incidents at the University of Virginia and at many other universities.

        In an apparently ever-growing number of incidents, persons wearing masks, holding sticks or poles with signs on them, and even carrying lighted torches have engaged in dangerous criminal behaviors on campus to express displeasure at a controversial speaker, to protest some general student injustice, or to express outrage at an unexpected off-campus incident (e.g., a police shooting of an unarmed man).

        But wearing a mask not only makes it safer for protestors to engage in acts of criminal violence - because they cannot be identified for the purposes of making a subsequent arrest or to face university disciplines - it also has become almost a badge and an identifier of those willing to incite violence.  Aside from a special event such as Halloween, masks have no valid purpose and serve no legitimate function at a campus demonstration.

       Lit torches - aside from their frightening association with the KKK and other violent groups - can be used as deadly weapons against other students or the police, to ignite Molotov cocktails, to set fire to buildings, and to physically intimidate others.  They likewise have no legitimate purpose at a campus demonstration, says Banzhaf.

        Finally, large sticks or poles, while they may sometimes be useful in holding signs aloft, can - as we have all seen on TV reports of campus riots - be quickly and easily turned into dangerous weapons.  Prohibiting them at demonstrations, regardless of the cause, does not chill free speech or favor any one group or viewpoint over another, so such a rule is content neutral, and therefore  permitted under the law as a time, place, and manner restriction.

        Despite all this, GWU's current policies do permit demonstrations and marches by people wearing masks, holding lit torches, and carrying sticks and poles which could be used as weapons.

        All of this is apparently because of a published university policy of  "allowing the expression of ideas and differing points of view."  But if all three were banned, and the rules were applied equally to all groups, there would obviously be no unfair impediment to any point of view, argues Banzhaf.

http://banzhaf.net/  jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com  @profbanzhaf