In a recent op-ed, Charles Callis took a brave stand by criticizing this year’s Central Student Government campaigns for failing to address on-campus acts of mass violence. He was right to do so. If we are to be serious candidates, our team must have serious discussions on this topic. It is true that the University of Michigan provides training for its staff on addressing these kinds of situations and that we have an on-campus security presence and alert system, but we can do better. And we must do better.
In that vein, the aMplify Party Policy Team has revised its platform to address this deficiency. We must continue to provide support for programming that ensures all entering freshmen can receive active attacker training from the Division of Public Safety and Security. Furthermore, we plan to create a partnership with the Residence Hall Association and University Housing to provide active attacker training workshops, facilitated by DPSS, in every residential community on campus. These agenda items will be the first discussions with University officials and other stakeholders that we have. Additionally, we will charge the Research and Polling Commission with the task of collecting feedback from the participants of these workshops, separately from DPSS or any other part of the University. We will use this feedback to communicate potential revisions of this program with DPSS. Though we cannot assure that all of our residents will always be able to escape the acts of evil people, we also cannot continue to ignore the risks our community faces.
In a world where even our campus buildings must act to mitigate the damages from acts of wanton violence, it is foolish to assume we are spared from the harsh realities of this tragic trend. We realize, too, that this initial plan is not sufficient, but in the future we pledge continued work with the administration and students to develop a full response to campus violence.
Sujay Shetty is an LSA junior and Matthew Williams is a first-year Law student.