U.S. Senator Katie Britt Exposes Brown University’s Failure to Prevent Tragic Deaths

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) questioned Secretary of Education Linda McMahon during a Senate Appropriations Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the President's Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget request for the Department of Education.

Senator Britt used her time to make the following remarks, in part below, where she discussed how Brown University's total failure to protect its students is a decades-long result of actively dismantling layers of protection.

"I realize the Department of Education is actively investigating Brown University in light of the tragic murders that occurred on campus last December. And you might be limited on what you can actually share. Public reporting from local stations and student news outlets has made it clear to me that the murder of Ella Cook, her fellow classmate, and the wounding of nine others were entirely preventable.

"They were the predictable result of more than a decade of ideological degradation and the vilification of police and law enforcement at Brown. In 2013, student activists demanded and ultimately accomplished the cancellation of a lecture titled, quote, 'Proactive Policing in America's Biggest City'… Brown responded, not only by canceling that [event], but by ramping up DEI infrastructure and campus climate work to address the, quote, 'racial justice concerns' that the protesters raised.

"Throughout the fall of 2015, student activists demanded the university further emphasize and invest in DEI practices, criticizing Brown's $100 million plan to, quote, 'improve race relations as insufficient.' The following year, Brown formally announced it would invest $165 million in DEI and strip away its proactive policing protocol and replace it with, quote, 'community service models.' In 2020, after more activism, Brown declared its Department of Public Safety would adopt a quote, 'phased approach to reducing reliance on police.'"

The Senator then went on to discuss several incidents in which Brown clearly demonstrated a lack of response to severe security threats, including an AR-15 and bomb threat in 2021 and a potential mass shooting in 2023.

"This response reveals the [Brown University] administration's attitude that its own physical security infrastructure they view as a political liability rather than a lifesaving necessity."

Senator Britt also touched on two unanimous votes of no-confidence in the Brown University police chief and his deputy and the Patrolmen's Association, as well as the severe shortage of campus police officers, noting how on the day of the shooting,"There were 15 vacant officer positions, resulting in only five officers protecting campus that day."

Continuing to recount the day of the shooting, the Senator noted the following: "A 15-year veteran custodian, Derek Lisi, saw the assailant 'casing the place for weeks,' Madam Secretary, pacing hallways, ducking into bathrooms and staring into room 166. The custodian reported this to the security contractors on campus, not once, but twice. The security staff responded with, quote, 'I'm not here for that,' end quote. The murderer himself later admitted that he planned to attack for six semesters and had, quote, 'plenty of opportunities, but he kept chickening out,' opportunities that Brown's gross negligence allowed.

"At 4:05 PM, Providence Fire Department was alerted that shots were fired at Barus and Holley engineering building. Instead of activating campus emergency alarm system, Brown waited 17 minutes knowing that there was an active shooter on campus to alert students of that threat. During the 17 minute void of official communication, the assailant was able to fire at least 44 rounds from a nine millimeters handgun, completely unchallenged, and escape … Brown University's leadership didn't just fail to protect its students, they actively, actively dismantled every layer of protection that could have stopped this massacre and prevented the murder of an MIT professor two days later.

"Madam Secretary, it is clear to me that Brown, in my opinion, has violated the Clery Act. And Madam Secretary, will you please confirm that your department is investigating this matter in a timely and a thorough fashion?"

Secretary McMahon responded, saying "That's a chilling account … and Senator, we are aware of a lot of these allegations with Brown, and we are actively conducting a Clery Act investigation into Brown."

The Clery Act requires colleges and universities to report campus crime data, publicly outline the policies and procedures they have put into place to improve campus safety, and more.

You can watch Senator Britt's full remarks here.

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