Universities are unique institutions. Their populations are students, the majority barely of age, who are on campus to access higher education.
The University of Utah maintaining that Lauren McCluskey’s killer was not part of their official community, thereby partially exonerating their campus police force, implies that maybe law enforcement generally can ignore suspected criminality when offenders are not participatory members of a defined community. But university students need and deserve protection from predators. They are young, inexperienced, maybe more prone to making mistakes.
What bothers me most is that in saying their campus police were marginally culpable in Lauren’s situation, the university appears callous, ever the institution, grinding out degrees, checking off boxes, as if they were manufacturers of an inanimate product.
The university’s reactive position to Lauren’s death, the fact that the U. president and other high-ranking officials have been quiet as church mice, gives the impression that instead of educating their student body regarding real threats, they prefer to hide, worried that being activists might in some way damage the more convenient status quo. As an alumna, I am embarrassed by their actions.
Joan Provost, Salt Lake City