If the University employee was negligent, perhaps. But I haven’t heard such allegations so far. Inviting another student without any reason to know he’s dangerous, would not be negligence (in my opinion)
ETA: If the employee was negligent, then a lawsuit to compensate the families would be a good thing. On the other hand unforeseeable criminal acts of a third party are usually enough to insulate a defendant from liability.
There may also be the question of whether the university dealt with the firearm issue properly (that is, there were various reports of hazing and an unauthorized firearm which the university apparently had a report of, so… what about that?). Did the university follow its own procedures in investigating those reports? And even if it did, were those procedures… “reasonable”? Was there a “duty” to do more? Did shortcomings with respect to that duty (if there was one) form some part of the causative chain leading to these deaths?
And so on…
I thought this was an excellent article. It captured the humanity of the people involved. The part about making sure the victims didn’t die alone really resonated with me. The young woman seems like a remarkable person.
I actually live reasonably close to campus. So, while I didn’t honestly expect to be confronted with any trouble that night, it wasn’t as implausible as I would prefer. I made sure to watch television that night with my kettlebell within easy reach.