An English professor at the University of North Dakota has made a public pledge to call 911 every time she sees ROTC drills with parade rifles. She is so terrified of guns on her campus that she has taken to calling the police to report uniformed students carrying out standard drills with fake weapons.
She proudly proclaims “[The 911 dispatcher] also tells me that ROTC will be doing these exercises for the next couple weeks. So I reply that I guess I’ll be calling 911 for the next couple weeks—and I will. Every time. It’s not my job to decide whether people carrying guns at school are an actual threat. It’s my job to teach and to get home to my family.”
She even wrote a letter to the Grand Forks Herald complaining about the young men and women trying to get an education while simultaneously training to protect this country. She believes that it is a violation of her rights for tomorrow’s soldiers to train on her quad, and she plans to waste public resources to prove a point. Feel free to read her ranting below.
Apparently, it’s not enough that UND’s administration is attacking the quality of education by cutting programs and experienced faculty and jacking class sizes. Now, we must also feel under physical attack as well.
I look up from my office computer to see two figures in camo with guns outside my window. My first thought is for my students’ and my safety: I grab my phone, crawl under my desk and call 911. The dispatcher keeps me on the line until someone can see if ROTC is doing maneuvers.
I can barely talk—first, with fear, and then with rage when the dispatcher reports back that yes, in fact, I’ve probably just seen ROTC cadets, though they’re going to send an officer to check because no one has cleared it with them. They thank me for reporting it.
A few minutes later, a university officer calls me back—not to reassure me, but to scold me for calling 911. He says ROTC has permission to do this exercise. When I tell him that this was news to 911 and that they encouraged me to call whenever I see a gun on campus, he seems surprised.
He also tells me that ROTC will be doing these exercises for the next couple weeks.
So I reply that I guess I’ll be calling 911 for the next couple weeks—and I will. Every time.
It’s not my job to decide whether people carrying guns at school are an actual threat. It’s my job to teach and to get home to my family.
It’s already highly inappropriate to conduct unnecessary military maneuvers in the middle of the quad. But with school shootings on the increase and tensions at UND running high, it’s especially irresponsible.
We’re already under financial and emotional attack. We don’t need to feel under physical attack, too.
Heidi Czerwiec
Grand Forks”
