Last week the New York Times reported Columbia Law School will allow students to postpone their finals if the non-indictments in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases have left them feeling “unnerved.” After receiving requests from a number of students, interim Dean Robert E. Scott sent an email to the student body and wrote that the decisions in Ferguson, Missouri, and Long Island, New York, “have shaken the faith of some in the integrity of the grand jury system and in the law more generally … this chain of events is all the more profound as it threatens to undermine a sense that the law is a fundamental pillar of society designed to protect fairness, due process and equality.”
We applaud Columbia in their decision to do what they feel is best for students. We also think it speaks to the injustices of these cases that many members of the next generation of lawyers have begun to doubt the system in which they’ve dedicated their lives thus far.
Ad
Many in Fort Collins are equally affected by these cases. Additionally, we have been shaken by events in our own community. At the start of the semester there were multiple assaults, October brought a riot and this past weekend an armed fugitive put the community on lock down.
It’s been tough, Rams. But through it all, this campus has remained strong together. Let’s destroy these finals, go home to our families and enjoy time with loved ones. But let us not forget about these events.
There are many injustices in this world, and it is OK to be upset by them, but let us continue to fight so that when this generation is running things, there may not be as many.
