The Dorothy Fallacy
Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.
We’re getting pretty good at predicting how those responsible for campus and city safety will react when we share our concerns about rising crime:
“Make sure your kid is paying attention to their surroundings.”
“You don’t want to be walking down Durant late at night staring at your iPhone.”
“UC Berkeley is in an urban environment, so just use common sense.”
By any measure, this is good advice.
The kind of advice Cal parents regularly emphasize to their kids.
It’s also a cop-out.
The subtext of such advice is that you’re no longer in Kansas, anymore. So just use common-sense and you’ll be fine. The converse often goes unsaid: if you find yourself the victim of violent crime, you probably weren’t paying attention.
Students are not at risk of violent crime because they aren’t paying attention. It’s because the UC Berkeley administration is failing to provide the safety measures it promised families when we were deciding where our kids would go to college.
Information like the Parent Guide above was distributed to prospective Cal families in March 2022. It describes several measures the administration has in place to keep students safe—
60 UC Police Department officers
Door-to-door shuttles operating from 3 to 5 a.m.
Night Safety Shuttles running from 7:30 p.m. to 3 a.m.
Security Monitors controlling building access during evening hours
Sworn UCPD officers dedicated to specific residence halls
UCPD sergeant acting as a liaison between residence hall students and UCPD
With the exception of a single Night Shuttle, none of these services exist—and they didn’t exist back in March 2022 when families like mine were deciding where to send their kids to college. What’s worse, UC Berkeley distributed this same misinformation to families a full year later in March 2023.
🚌 May 7, 2023, Update: All 3 Night Safety Shuttles are now back in service! 🚌
It’s time for the administration to either provide the services it promised to keep students safe, or stop making those promises in the first place.
Teaching students to develop common-sense safety habits is important. And for students who were raised in rural settings, some kind of city safety training would be welcomed. But don’t fall for the Dorothy Fallacy:
The reason students are not safe isn’t because they’re not using common sense. It’s because the UC Berkeley administration failed to provide the safety services it promised.
Tell Chancellor Christ how you feel about this. Send her an email with our easy templates.