Georgia State and Emory University sit about five miles away from each other. A twenty minute ride, shorter if there’s no traffic, (a wishful thought, that). Both campuses are buzzing right now with controversy due to recent events, with students and parents infuriated by what has unfolded over the past 48 hours. That though, is where the similarities come to a screeching, grinding halt.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that crime occurs on and around an urban campus like Georgia State’s. The university of course has security measures and active police patrols, but you just can’t stop everything in the heart of a major city. When students start to fear for their safety in some of the parts of campus that should serve as sanctuaries though, the school has a big problem.
Two armed robberies in GSU’s library in the course of a month earlier this year put the community on edge. A major school building, as secure as any on campus, was somehow infiltrated by men who stole phones and laptops at gunpoint from students studying there. The university responded by stepping up patrols in the area, but for many students the damage was already done.
Those incidents were followed by a shoot-out this week in the parking lot of an on-campus dorm where a student was shot in the chest. A drug-deal gone wrong, it was a more isolated crime than the robberies in the library. It’s beyond troubling though that the excuse of ‘it’s an isolated crime’ somehow makes up for two men, one a student, being shot in the chest in the heart of what is supposed to be a safe and secure learning environment for students.
As Georgia House Bill 859, the Campus Carry bill, sits on Governor Deal’s desk awaiting his signature, (or veto) the incidents at Georgia State may be weighing heavily on his mind. If security patrols and school ID scanners can’t keep robbers out of the library or away from dorm parking lots, how can the state tell students that they aren’t allowed to protect themselves?
Five miles to the east, Emory’s campus is likewise metaphorically on fire. The controversial issue there though isn’t quite as poignant as the idea of students being shot at a place that should be a safe haven. No, what has students protesting and meeting with their president there are a series of ‘Trump 2016’ messages written in chalk on different parts of the campus. 
Rather than wait for a light drizzle to take care of the problem, incensed students took to the streets, protesting the nerve of whoever supports the leading GOP candidate for president. A far cry from the civil rights and anti-Vietnam protesters they pretend to emulate, student leaders met with President Jim Wagner, who listened as they “voiced their genuine concern and pain in the face of this perceived intimidation”. One can only hope Wagner rolled his eyes as he wrote ‘perceived intimidation’, for any generation of young adults intimidated by the words ‘Trump 2016’ scrawled on a piece of pavement is not a generation I want to be a part of.
College sophomore Jonathan Peraza, clearly horribly affected by this chalk-attack, was part of the protests outside administration buildings yesterday. “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” he yelled into a loudspeaker, a message that was later heard by Wagner himself as he let the noble social-justice warriors into his office to voice their concerns.
Five miles back downtown, Georgia State President Mark Becker continues to deal with the fallout of another violent crime on his campus. Real injustice and real violence that gives credence to a state legislature that has pushed to allow students to carry weapons on campus for their own safety.
Two schools, one city. Five miles has never seemed longer.
