Exceptions to the rule

I often hear of students getting kicked out of college for drinking or bad grades. However, two students may be kicked out of Gonzaga University for trying to save their own lives.

Two students at Gonzaga University are facing expulsion for violating the school’s weapon policy.

But if they would have followed the school’s policy, they might not be alive to tell the tale.

When an intruder tried to barge into their university-owned apartment, one of the students drew his pistol and the intruder ran away. The students are in trouble for violating a Gonzaga policy stating that firearms are prohibited in any university residence. They are currently on probation.

Although they clearly breached the policy, these students need to be pardoned due to the extraneous circumstances.

Universities have an obligation to protect every student. If these two students are suspended, Gonzaga will have retroactively stripped these students of their safety.

Their firearm was clearly the primary reason the intruder retreated in this specific instance. If they expel the students for violating the policy, they are essentially saying that a student’s safety falls behind adherence to school policy.

I am not advocating that guns should be allowed everywhere on campus. The gun debate is a heated one on both sides. But in this specific instance, it is obvious that the guns helped and possibly saved the students’ lives, so they should not be punished for it.

Gonzaga University has the right to make almost any policy they choose. Their policy prohibiting guns is not inherently wrong, but their choice to enforce it in this situation is.

The school is banning guns based on the mindset that more bad would come than good. But in this specific instance, they saw how the guns worked. They saw that only good came from having guns in this situation, which is sufficient evidence to provide an exception to these students.

Colleges live in entirely separate worlds. Many colleges have special rules prohibiting smoking and drinking, even if it would be legal elsewhere in the country. Since they have special rules, they can make special exceptions, as they should in this case.

These two students by all accounts had good academic records with no signs of trouble. If Gonzaga expels these students, they will have taken years of money from these students and wasted years of their lives.

We should not have a no-tolerance mindset when discussing policies that are specific to universities. Special policies permit special exceptions.

If a university’s goal is to educate the young by providing us with resources and opportunities specifically tailored to our future, a gun that saved lives should not be a hindrance to that goal.

These students should not be punished for defending their lives, no matter what ancillary policy they broke.

­— lewicole@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Cole Lewis on Twitter @ColeThenLewis.