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When a gunman killed three Michigan State University students and seriously injured five others on Monday night, the university announced that there would be no classes for the rest of this week.
It turns out that many Michigan State students don’t think that’s enough.
“Returning one week after a mass shooting has left many unsettled,” says a petition signed by nearly 15,000 as of Thursday afternoon. “This petition is a proposal to have hybrid or online options for students and parents who are uncomfortable with returning to campus with such haste. With Michigan State University being a public campus and an ongoing investigation, it is believed it is in the students’ best interests to be given a call of action to move forward with the school year. Not as a way to evade ‘normalcy’ by not returning to in person classes but safely. After the egregious events that happened this week, student’s and faculty’s safety should not be treated lightly.”
An editorial in The State News, the student newspaper, said, “We can’t physically sit in a classroom on Monday. It’s been less than a week since we lost three fellow Spartans in those classrooms. We aren’t ready. But we also can’t log onto Zoom on Monday and meaningfully engage in our classwork. We’re processing trauma. We’re coming to terms with grief. We can’t be worried about a deadline or an exam. We need more time to process without a class to worry about. MSU must extend the pause they’ve given us so we can decide how we need to proceed to feel safe and secure.”
Michigan State did not respond to a request for comment.
