I was in Harrisonburg, Virginia earlier this year. I noticed that the campus of Eastern Mennonite University appeared to have a security officer on duty.
I thought, wait a minute, don’t Mennonites believe in nonresistance to evil? Why would they teach pacifism and then turn around and post security officers at one of their schools?
Now, before I lose my patience and accuse the school administration of being hypocrites, is there a reason why a college/university would be required to have security, even if they, in theory, don’t see the need? Are there laws or something that require this?
You seem to have campus security confused with a SWAT team. Most of the duties of a college security guard would not conflict with a policy of pacifism.
There’s also the fact that only about 50% of the students are Mennonite. A university wants to attract as many people as possible to it’s campus, and I think making everyone feel safe is an important factor in that.
FWIW, the police department at my alma mater spent approximately 98% of their time writing up incident reports for petty theft, usually in one of two massive parking lots. The rest of the time they directed traffic at big events.
Even if every student was 100% good (does pacifism=being good?), on any given day, most universities probably still have dozens if not hundreds of people who aren’t students or faculty going about business on campus. It’s not like they’re walled off and only good people are allowed in. Although, if they were, I guess you’d need security guards to man the gates.
But that’s not the OP’s confusion. It’s the idea that a Mennonite, being against violent resistance, should find it unethical to hire someone whose job may include such violent resistance.
Although, police officers at many colleges are real police in every sense. There are regularly cases of people who pass near my alma mater, commit some offense (usually traffic) and try to escape. They end up surprised not only to be arrested and jailed but to learn that, as actual police, the campus police’s authority extends beyond campus to anywhere they see a crime.
Even so, the majority of the duties of police don’t usually involve violent confrontation, either.
Yeah, that’s how the whole movement got off the ground in the first place. The early Anabaptists were sheltered from the evildoers in their society by the firm hand of legal authorities, who spent much of their time tracking down those Anabaptists and executing them for heresy.
On a campus a security officer can be all sorts of things. My university (not in the US) has a security office, staffed with security officers. When this was set up some decades ago the staff were the building caretakers given new positions. Their main duties were things like locking and unlocking buildings. Nowadays their role includes things like escorting students around late at night, watching the ever growing security cameras, and monitoring the various equipment alarms. If we lost aircon in the machine room late at night it was the security office that called me. If I locked my keys in my office I would wander into the security office to ask them to let me in. They are most certainly not armed, and do not have police powers.
Looking up the Mennonite branch that owns the college, it seems that they don’t have a ban on their members joining police forces, depending on the situation. I don’t think campus security would be a big problem here.
Well, there are laws that require schools to keep track of crime statistics on campus - this would be hard without some kind of campus security. Plus, there have been events on Virginia campuses in the last few years that would make any decent college administration look at their policies here. You likely remember at least one of these.
Security is not synonymous with violent action. If there’s a fender-bender on the campus, for instance, campus security can be called to handle it.
And can you think of the legal ramifications if something bad happened on campus–student gets raped, a fight breaks out, someone comes to school with a gun and starts shooting–and it turns out the school had no security? Even if it’s just a pair of doofuses driving around in a golf-cart, they would be keeping up appearances that the school had done its due deligence in protecting its charges.
A campus ecurity guard’s first resort is rarely crushing hand to hand battle. Most of what they do is act as a deterent. Even without the threat of force, people are less likey to misbehave if they are being watched. Security manages more passive security stuff like locking buildings, managing security lighting, IDing visitors, etc. If a crime happens, they can investigate and the perp can be kicked out of school, publically shamed, lose privledges, offered rehabilitation or followed closely.
99.99% of a campus cop’s work is perfectly compatable.
