We—the faculty and students of the Asian and Asian American studies program—are hurting. We are saddened, angry, mourning, and processing the campus shooting on December 6, 2023 that took the lives of three UNLV professors, Dr. Jerry Chang, Dr. Patricia Navarro, and Dr. Naoko Takemaru, and left another professor fighting for his life. We send our deepest condolences and offer of support to the victims’ families and our colleagues. Many of us were on campus that day, finishing our final week of classes, only to endure a harrowing experience that has left us shell-shocked, trying to make sense of it all.
It is not lost on any of us that the three people killed were faculty of color—two Asians/Asian Americans and one Latina—and we fear that the fourth victim will be confirmed to also be Asian/Asian American. We must name this fact, think about it, and ask questions based on this reality. We believe this fact is key to understanding the “why?” We understand that this shooting may not be considered a “hate crime” or that it may not have been racially motivated within the legal definition of a hate crime. We know that the shooter was disgruntled and sought revenge for being rejected for an academic position at UNLV (and elsewhere) and expressed a disdain for the state of higher education as a whole. We also know that he had a list of targets for UNLV, but none of the victims were on that list.
Despite this, we are left with questions. Even if we find no explicit evidence of racial animus or if the shooter was “racially-motivated,” how do we explain why the factual outcome is that four of the victims are faculty of color? If the shooter was indeed angry at the Lee Business School for denying him a job and went to Beam Hall to kill specific faculty on his target list, why did he end up shooting other faculty? And why did he choose non-White faculty to kill? Did he imagine them as taking “his” job? Dr….
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