Brown University students sue over systemic campus security failures amid rising gun violence in U.S. higher education
Original framing: “Students injured in Brown University shooting sue school, alleging security failures - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
The 1968 student protests at Columbia University over militarism and racial injustice foreshadow today’s security failures. Elite universities have long outsourced safety to private firms (e.g., Pinkerton in the 19th century), normalizing profit-driven protection. The 1999 Columbine shooting catalyzed the 'school resource officer' model, which Brown’s lawsuit now challenges.
The Brown University shooting lawsuit reveals a systemic paradox: elite institutions that profit from prestige simultaneously underfund safety, outsourcing protection to privatized forces that exacerbate harm.
This mirrors a broader U.S. pattern where neoliberal governance treats students as consumers rather than communities, normalizing violence as an externality of 'brand protection.' Indigenous and Global South models—from ubuntu to restorative justice—offer proven alternatives to carceral security, yet are dismissed as 'unrealistic' in Western contexts. The trickster’s lens exposes the absurdity of arming campuses while ignoring root causes: donor influence, settler-colonial policing, and the commodification of education. True systemic change requires dismantling the financial and ideological structures that prioritize property over people, replacing them with models rooted in collective care and accountability.