BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – U.S. Sen. Katie Britt is accusing Brown University of “actively dismantling” campus safety protections before the December shooting that killed Mountain Brook graduate Ella Cook, remarks she made during a federal education budget hearing and amplified Wednesday in a news release.
Britt, R-Ala., said public reporting had convinced her that Cook’s death, the death of another Brown student and the wounding of nine others were “entirely preventable.”
Ella Cook
Her office highlighted the exchange in a news release Wednesday morning, saying Britt used her time to discuss Brown’s “total failure to protect its students.”
“They were the predictable result of more than a decade of ideological degradation and the vilification of police and law enforcement at Brown,” Britt said during Tuesday’s hearing.
The hearing was called to review the Department of Education’s budget request. Other senators questioned Education Secretary Linda McMahon about federal education programs, including TRIO, Impact Aid and the department’s proposed changes to education funding and oversight.
Britt instead shared a timeline of Brown decisions and campus incidents that she said contributed to weakened safety protections, including student activism around policing, changes to campus police practices, prior security threats, police staffing shortages and delays in emergency alerts after the shooting began.
“Brown University’s leadership didn’t just fail to protect its students,” Britt said. “They actively, actively dismantled every layer of protection that could have stopped this massacre and prevented the murder of an MIT professor two days later.”
“It is clear to me that Brown, in my opinion, has violated the Clery Act,” Britt said. She asked for her remarks to be submitted into the record.
The department announced a program review of Brown’s compliance with the Clery Act, a federal campus safety law, less than two weeks after the Dec. 13 shooting.
McMahon called Britt’s account “chilling” and confirmed the department is currently investigating Brown.
The Clery Act requires colleges that receive federal financial aid to disclose campus crime data, maintain public crime logs and publish annual security reports outlining reported crimes and campus safety policies. Statistics through 2023 are reported in the federal database.
The federal investigation is not the only scrutiny Brown faces.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that three students injured in the shooting have sued Brown in Rhode Island Superior Court, alleging the university ignored prior warnings about the shooter and failed to maintain “reasonable and appropriate security measures.”
Brown told the AP it was reviewing the complaints and had no details to share on the merits of the litigation.
Britt’s full remarks during the hearing can be seen below.
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