Parents need to look closely, and learn, from the
attempts to manipulate the events of the morning of April 16, 2007. For example, Virginia Tech President Charles
Steger testified in the Pryde and Peterson trial that the email alerting the
campus to the shootings was watered down and delayed until 0926 (just moments
before Cho slaughtered 30 people in Norris Hall) at the request of Zenobia
Hikes, former vice president of student affairs. Hikes died on October 27,
2008, and therefore, conveniently, cannot refute or deny Steger’s assertion.
Steger testified that Hikes argued that a notice about
one student killed and another critically wounded, without family notification,
would cause unnecessary panic and heartbreak. Steger said he found her argument
“reasonable” and he thought it would be “horrible” to hear about it (the death)
on the radio. So, Steger went on, he waited for more information to make a
useful (he did not explain “useful”) notification. All I can say is that what
he sent out only referred to a “shooting incident” and the email was certainly not useful. Furthermore, Hikes was very
junior and to put the word “panic” in her mouth is, well to put it nicely,
highly doubtful because preventing “panic” had been a major (but bogus) theme
coming from high levels at Tech in relation to decisions made before and during
the massacre.
Steger’s
words were so egregious that six Virginia Tech faculty members wrote a letter
to the editor of the Roanoke Times
questioning the veracity of the school president’s testimony. The six pointed
out that Hikes was too junior to make such a call. They also point out that, “Emergency and safety protocols dictate that policy decisions of this
magnitude are made by others in positions superior to hers [Hikes], so it is
distressing to us that she is the only member of the Tech Policy Group to have
been singled out.”
Following the killings on
April 16, 2007, there were rumors that the Steger administration instituted
draconian measures to keep faculty members silent as part of the school’s
aggressive campaign to manage the spin on the tragedy. It is therefore interesting
to note that the six members who defended Hikes wrote the following in the
first paragraph of their letter: “In spite of the risks involved in speaking
out, we felt a moral obligation to write on behalf of Dr. Hikes, who, due to
her untimely death, is no longer able to speak out on her behalf.”
Notes taken by Kim
O’Rourke, chief of staff to university President Charles Steger, for the Policy
Group on the morning of the 16th of April, do not single out Hikes
as the main catalyst for delaying notifying the campus or revising the message.
Those notes were shown to the jury during the trial.
Before
I close, I need to remind you, the reader, of the magnitude of the task parents
face in trying to tackle the problem of school safety. By the latest tally,
Virginia Tech has spent over $1 million on public relations agencies to deflect
attention away from what some have described as the worst massacre on a college
campus in modern history. Can families compete with that kind of money?
Furthermore, the school seems to be protected by politicians on both sides of
the aisle in Richmond. The difficulty in simply getting one’s argument heard is
almost overwhelming. (To be continued)
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