Arming the Faculty: a Few Questions

Richard Ellis, Alamy

In response to gun violence in general and to the recent massacre at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in particular, President Trump has advanced as a solution the possibility that teachers be armed. This is so that (as you can easily picture), in the event of the next school shooting, these teachers would shoot and kill the would-be shooter. Now, the president was referring to elementary- and high-school teachers, but mass shootings also happen at colleges, so it seems incumbent on those of us who teach in higher education to think about how we might participate in a program like the one he suggested.

I, for one, have a few questions:

The president has recently refined his initial idea to argue that only about 20 percent of teachers should be armed — just the “very weapons-talented teachers.” My experience among faculty members makes me think it somewhat unlikely that 20 percent of us are “very weapons talented,” so presumably some training would be necessary.

Given the complexities of the modern firearms landscape, would this training be under the direction of campus IT (instructional-technology) departments, or would we need to establish new HT (homicidal-technology) departments? Which academic departments would be the best ones to eliminate in order to free up the necessary funds?

As an alternative possibility, would this be under the purview of campus CTLs (Centers of Teaching and Learning)? Could they offer seminars on the use of military weapons as pedagogical tools? “How to Keep Students Engaged While Killing Heavily Armed Intruders”? “Active Learning Versus Active Shooters”? “How to Translate Your Years of Engagement With Matters of the Mind and Heart Into a Split-Second Decision to Kill”?

If we’re talking about just 20 percent of teachers, would this not-too-well-regulated militia be drawn from among the tenured faculty or from the more than 70 percent of faculty members who are now contingent? Given that many of those contingent faculty members are struggling to stitch together enough employment to make a living, maybe they could use some of their spare time practicing discharging weapons. Perhaps there’s even some side money to be made as a gun for hire outside of academe! And, of course, the college could always decline to renew their contracts if they accidentally shot the wrong people.

Some military veterans have insisted that training would need to be substantial. As the Army veteran Ellen Lincourt notes, “the military and police train regularly for tactical situations.” This takes time. Would this kind of work be counted toward the service component of a person’s tenure file, or would it be lumped in with teaching evaluations? Presumably, given the frequency of school shootings, the two would often coincide. “This was a great class. As a young person who has been repeatedly traumatized by tragedies involving young people being shot and killed, it certainly makes it easier for me to learn, knowing that those same kinds of weapons are already in my classroom, ready to go off.” Or: “Professor so-and-so is a harsh grader but an excellent shot.”

The fact is that college faculty members, like all teachers, tend to be pretty busy, so would they be given allowances to set aside some of their current responsibilities to make time for the shooting range? We know that departmental meetings, committee work, and research are all essential to higher education, so perhaps militarized teachers could get course releases? For adjuncts, would this involve stipends? Or we could turn back to the government: The president has recently suggested paying teachers bonuses for packing heat, and it’s easy to imagine the current Congress throwing piles of money and benefits at teachers, so maybe this won’t be an issue. The actual education of students seems a bit of a luxury in any case.

Would the teachers get to wear badges? Everybody likes badges.

Ultimately, these questions are just about details, all of which can presumably be worked out by college administrators — who are, of course, well prepared to rally and organize a loose mob of casually armed academics. And what else can we do? In a country full of firearms and lacking laws making firearms harder to get, where people have no problem easily buying rapid-fire guns that are able to kill lots of people quickly, anybody can see what the real problem is: teachers.

David Ebenbach is a professor of the practice in the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University.