This spring, amid a spate of mass shootings and rising concern about gun crime, two universities made plans to fortify their campus-police forces.
George Washington University’s police department will begin arming some officers this fall for the first time. Portland State University quietly moved away from a 2021 policy change that had restricted its officers’ ability to patrol with weapons.
The backlash was swift. George Washington students marched to the interim president’s on-campus residence; more than 200 faculty members signed a letterchastising the university’s board for failing to gather enough community input. Portland State students and faculty said the move felt like an invalidation of what activists had fought for and, in 2021, got closer to achieving: a campus without armed law enforcement.