The weekend shooting death of an unarmed black teen by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., had colleges in the St. Louis area scrambling to beef up security this week as racially-charged clashes between protesters and the police created an uneasy prelude to a new academic year.
Area colleges sent out messages to reassure students, parents, and faculty and staff that their campuses were safe after several nights in which heavily-armed police officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters angered by the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Teach-ins were being planned at several campuses that will be welcoming students next week.
St. Louis Community College, which has a campus in Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb where the shooting took place, will offer a town hall-style meeting there next week with the U.S. Department of Justice to discuss the shooting and its aftermath. On Thursday, the campus will hold small-group discussion sessions with students, who start classes on Monday.
Meanwhile, controversy over the incident is reverberating nationwide, fueled by a social-media campaign influenced by students at Howard University, a historically black university in Washington.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: https://chronicle.com/article/A-Shooting-in-a-St-Louis/148405
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