On the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus, an active shooter event occurred on Monday, with a burdened doctoral student taken into custody following the incident. While the tragedy is a solemn event in itself, an entirely different cause for concern has arisen regarding the response of the institution during the active shooter situation. Some law professors at the university continued to hold their classes over Zoom, a decision that has sparked backlash and criticism.
Tailei Qi, the doctoral student involved, is facing charges of first-degree murder as well as the possession of a firearm on educational property. The deceased, Zijie Yan, an Applied Physical Sciences professor and Qi’s academic advisor, was found in the campus’s Caudill Labs. Amidst this American tragedy, the university’s actions while the shooter was still at large have come under fire and raised safety concerns amongst students and faculty alike. Above the Law reports that Ed Kellermann, a third-year law student, who gained viral attention for his TikTok reports during this scary situation, showed that classes were proceeding as normal via Zoom during the active shooter scenario.
While criticisms of the University’s response during the incident have been voiced by students and professor Eric Muller alike, it is the action plan and response protocol for such events that has drawn the most attention. Reports suggest that some professors, after being asked multiple times to halt instruction, only ceased their classes when official cancellation notifications were sent out campus-wide.
Additionally, some students described having to convince their instructors to stop lecturing as the situation unfolded, underlining the perceived lack of established safety measures. Muller further commented on the chaotic response, expressing sympathy for students and faculty facing not only the threat of the active shooter but the seemingly disorganized response as well.
The unclear lines of communication and definitive protocol in such incidents have become a notable point of contention. Despite not providing a comment on the controversy yet, the law school is now under pressure to revisit its protocols to ensure more efficient and secure responses to such events in the future, as the potential for them unfortunately remains.