Letter: Student trainings bear redress by administration

Editor,

After the recent DOJ investigation at UNM over student sexual assault concerns, LoboRespect Advocacy Center has gained relevance into the new semester with mandatory “Grey Area” training for students. But aren’t there other trainings that the University can provide us to improve campus safety?

It was in light of this mandatory training that I got to thinking about the recent crime surge we’ve seen on Central and in Albuquerque at large. To my knowledge, there is no University-mandated training for students on how best to handle robbery, carjacking or aggressive panhandlers; a mass violence event or disaster or how to report such incidents to law enforcement.

As a matter of fact, if I had to guess why the “Grey Area” mandatory trainings even exist — and why other trainings to address more prevalent issues don’t exist in more equal measure — I’d have to think political interests serve as the primary culprit.

Of course, it can be hard for students to criticize the “Grey Area” program, because any criticism of the program is easily framed as a criticism of student safety initiatives. In questioning the “Rape Culture” mythos which thrusts this issue of campus sexual assault into the mainstream, any person against LoboRespect’s overreach may find themselves painted as a closed-minded bigot whose very importunate existence validates the program’s necessity.

Thus, we’ve conceived another wing of UNM’s endless bureaucracy; spreading itself all over the school and demanding evermore of our student monies. All this, and they have the gall to say we need budget restrictions! But student safety comes before politics, naturally.

If this little red herring writing to your paper may be so bold: When intoxicated imbroglios constitute University administrators’ biggest safety concerns for this campus, we’re already in an unsafe environment.

I wouldn’t send my son or daughter to UNM as things are, and it’s not because of the rape culture.

Ryan Margraf

Graduate student

Anderson School of Business