We are saddened and shocked by the events that took place on Monday August 28th on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Professor Zijie Yan during this unimaginably difficult time.

Experiencing an active shooter lockdown has been traumatizing for large swathes of the campus community, be they students, campus workers, graduate workers, or faculty. Furthermore, the seemingly intentional killing of a faculty member by one of their graduate students is disturbing in its own right. 

While the exact motives behind this violent act remain unclear, it is important to be mindful of issues that may be pertinent. The topics of mental health and affordable access to mental healthcare for graduate workers (as well as faculty and campus workers), working conditions on campus, and potential labor exploitation in departments must be a part of the discourse going forward. As the union representing graduate student and campus workers, UE 150 has a strong  history of actively organizing to bring attention to and address these issues at both the level of UNC-CH administration and at the state legislature, which has deprioritized access to mental healthcare and loosened regulations around access to firearms.

Additionally, the recent events bring up questions about the University's readiness in emergency situations. There have already been several reports about classrooms that were not possible to lock from the inside. Furthermore, there were reports that lockdown protocols were not followed in some classrooms. Despite what the University has communicated officially, there are no mandatory active shooter training or drills given to staff or students, including graduate student workers who regularly teach classes independently. Additionally, Alert Carolina did not publish any of its alerts in Spanish, meaning workers who didn't speak English did not have access to lifesaving information when they needed it. The Workers Union at UNC will join any effort that seeks to address these crucial issues. 

We are committed to working together with the campus community to begin to recover from these devastating events. We will never stop our advocacy for students and workers at Chapel Hill. We must proceed with compassion for those around us and work together to stop such an event from happening again in the future.