Education Department Announces Safety Review Of Brown University After Deadly Campus Shooting

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Department of Education on Monday announced it would conduct a review of Brown University to uncover potential safety violations after a campus shooting left two students dead and nine others wounded, and to determine if the Ivy League institution complied with federal laws requiring ample campus security measures to receive student aid funding.

The review, led by the department’s Office of Federal Student Aid, will assess whether the Ivy League institution met requirements under the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, also known as the Clery Act. The law mandates that colleges receiving federal student aid maintain robust security measures, including timely warnings and accurate crime reporting.

Public reports in the hours after the incident suggested Brown’s surveillance and security systems fell short, allowing the suspect to escape while the university struggled to provide useful details about the shooter. Students and staff also reported delays in emergency notifications, sparking worries about the alert system’s effectiveness. If confirmed, these issues could represent major breaches of federal obligations.

“After two students were horrifically murdered at Brown University when a shooter opened fire in a campus building, the Department is initiating a review of Brown to determine if it has upheld its obligation under the law to vigilantly maintain campus security,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement.

“Students deserve to feel safe at school, and every university across this nation must protect their students and be equipped with adequate resources to aid law enforcement. The Trump Administration will fight to ensure that recipients of federal funding are vigorously protecting students’ safety and following security procedures as required under federal law.”

As part of the probe, the department has asked Brown to submit documents by Jan. 30, including annual security reports for 2024 and 2025, audit trails of crimes and arrests from 2021 to 2024, dispatch logs, daily crime logs, lists of timely warnings and emergency notifications from 2021 to 2025, and policies on alerts, crime logs, and active shooter protocols. The request also includes any assessments of campus safety practices since 2020.

The shooting, which occurred Dec. 13, drew national attention, with the FBI offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect.

Killed in the shooting were Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old from Virginia who aspired to become a neurosurgeon, and 19-year-old Ella Cook, vice president of the College Republicans at Brown and a native of Mountain Brook, Alabama.

The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown student, was found dead in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, days later. An autopsy determined he died by suicide with a gun two days before his body was found.

The department’s statement did not clarify a timeline, but noted the process would assess compliance in depth, along with safety requirements.

The university did not return a request for comment by publication time.

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Education has investigated institutions like the University of Pennsylvania for inaccurate foreign funding disclosures and others for allegedly excluding U.S.-born students from scholarships. Continuing disagreements revolve around federal funding linked to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, as well as anti-Semitism concerns.