Reflections on the Virginia Tech killings

Even now, nearly two weeks later, my students look to me for answers. I offer rationality, reason. It is insufficient. Madness is on the loose. Virginia Tech occupies every thought of students and faculty on campus. We are relieved when through the door it's only a late arriving student. My students look to me for explanation. I offer rationality, reason. It is insufficient. Madness is on the loose.

It was the day after Yom Hashoah. Liviu Librescu, born in 1930 in Romania had been a survivor of the Holocaust. Romania's Iron Guard didn't wait for German orders. Jews were rounded up and murdered by homegrown fascists by the hundreds of thousands. But he survived. In the post-War era he lived under the tyranny of the Ceausescu regime which would neither allow him to practice his profession nor leave the country. It was only the personal intervention of Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978 that secured his release from the suspended animation of life under Ceausescu's tyranny. In Israel he taught at Tel Aviv University and at the Technion in Haifa. In 1984 he came to Virginia Tech on sabbatical leave and stayed, becoming its most published scholar, ever. According to his son Joe, at Tech “he saw himself as the ambassador of Israel ... to an American university that had few Israelis but many representatives from the Arab world.”

I don't know how Professor Librescu observed Yom Hashoa, or if he did at all. I do know that on the Monday, Marlena,his wife, drove him to campus from their home at the edge of a forest through which he liked to take long contemplative walks. Shortly after 9:00 a.m. he was teaching Solid Mechanics to a class of 23 students. Gun shots were heard from the room next door. Professor Librescu slammed shut the door to his classroom and pressed his body against it. One of his students, Alec Calhoun, later told the AP that “he and classmates heard 'a thunderous sound from the classroom next door, what sounded like an enormous hammer.'” The students' initial response was to flip over their desks to use as hiding places. Librescu, though, shouted to them to get out the windows, to jump from the second story. The students kicked through the screens and jumped, one then another then another. The last image Calhoun has of his professor was just before jumping himself. He turned and saw Librescu at the door, blocking it to give the students another few seconds to escape. The killer, Cho Seung-Hui, tried to break in, but couldn't. Soon enough he shot through the door and hit professor Librescu five times. One student, Minal Panchal, was killed. All the others escaped. A survivor, Caroline Merrey, 22, reported that as the students were jumping out the window, “Professor Librescu never made an attempt to leave.” She reports that “He's a part of my life now and forever. I'm changed. I'm not the person I was before Monday.” None of us are. My students look to me for answers. I offer rationality, reason. It is insufficient. Madness is on the loose.

There is no way to bring back the 32 students and faculty killed. There is a way to help prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. Back in 1974, the Buckley Amendment, more formally called the Family Educational and Privacy Rights Act came into being. In short this says that if a student is 18 years of age or older, faculty cannot communicate with their parents. This to protect the students' privacy, a possibly laudatory goal. Down at Virgina Tech Cho Seung-Hui's English teacher noted dangerous tendencies and advised him to go to counseling but could not follow up. The campus police were called in on a couple of occasions in response to some creepy behaviors, but... You get my point. The consequence of protecting Seung-Hui's privacy was the death of 32 innocent students and teachers. The law had been obeyed scrupulously, the deaths are irrevocable. This we can do something about. We can write to our congressmen and senators and urge them to revoke the Buckley amendment, to allow teachers and counselors and administrators to talk to worried, distraught parents. I understand that mental health professionals have a code of ethics by which they must abide—but need teachers be bound by their code? When concerned parents call I want to answer their questions without fear of being sued by a student. Anyone care to join me?