During a Tuesday Senate Labor, Health and Human Services subcommittee hearing, U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Montgomery) accused Brown University of violating the Clery Act, leading to the shooting death of student Ella Cook, of Mountain Brook, in December 2025.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act (Clery Act) "requires institutions of higher education to meet certain campus safety and security-related requirements as a condition of receiving federal student aid."
While addressing Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Britt detailed how Brown University leadership for more than a decade had vilified police and law enforcement as part of an "ideological degradation." She pointed to Brown "ramping up DEI infrastructure and campus climate work to address 'racial justice concerns.'"
According to Alabama's junior U.S. Senator, Brown had numerous incidents over the last decade-plus and "did nothing," which is why there were only five campus police officers active the day Ella Cook was murdered, along with fellow student Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov.
Partial transcript as follows:
I realize the Department of Education is actively investigating Brown University in light of the tragic murders that occurred on campus last December. And you might be limited and what you can actually share. Public reporting from local stations and student news outlets has made it clear to me that the murder of Ella Cook, her fellow classmate, and the wounding of nine others were entirely preventable.
They were the predictable result of more than a decade of ideological degradation and the vilification of police and law enforcement at Brown. In 2013, student activists demanded and ultimately accomplished the cancellation of a lecture titled, quote, Proactive Policing and America's Biggest City. This was to be done by then-current NYPD Commissioner. Brown responded not only by canceling that, but by ramping up DEI infrastructure and campus climate work to address the, quote, racial justice concerns that the protesters raised.
Throughout the fall of 2015, student activists demanded the university further emphasize and invest in DEI practices, criticizing Brown's $100 million plan to, quote, improve race relations as insufficient. The following year, Brown formally announced it would invest $165 million in DEI and strip away its proactive policing protocol and replace it with, quote, community service models. In 2020, after more activism, Brown declared its Department of Public Safety would adopt a, quote, phased approach to reducing reliance on police.
In 2021, the university received a bomb threat from a caller who claimed to have placed bombs throughout campus and said to be armed with an AR 15. The caller threatened, quote, if any police approached me, I'll open fire on them immediately and any other student I see, end quote. Michael Greco, after 18 years as a Brown police officer, he was one of the ones that responded to this incident.
He testified under oath that during the 2021 AR 15 and bomb threat, leadership explicitly ordered responders off recorded radio channels, deliberately concealing an active shooter threat from the Providence police and the federal Clery Oversight Act. In the summer of 2023, a Brown police sergeant was made aware of another potential mass shooting threat made against Brown. When the sergeant urged university leadership to cancel a children's reading event scheduled for later that day, he was brushed off.
His leadership later described his actions as, quote, bordering insubordination. In 2024, campus activists claimed the university's existing security apparatus, a few security cameras and a debilitated police force that it constituted a, quote, instrument of impression, end quote, that furthered the university's goal to, quote, criminalize protest. Faced with this backlash, president Christina Paxson issued a university wide email formally apologizing for the perception that the university was, quote, engaging in surveillance.
This response reveals the administration's attitude that its own physical security infrastructure they view as a political liability rather than a life saving necessity. In April of 2024, an unsecured door allowed two criminals the opportunity to rob students at the Everett-Poland dorm on campus. Brown did nothing. On August 27, 2025, the Brown University Police Sergeants Union issued a unanimous vote of no confidence for Brown University police chief and his deputy.
Brown did nothing. In October of 2025, the Patrolmen Association issued an additional unanimous no confidence vote, explicitly warning of exhausted officers forced overtime, and quote, on going technology failures, end quote. Brown did nothing. In November 2025, custodian Bill Cain emailed executive vice president directly, concerned about the unauthorized access and lack of patrols. Brown did nothing. So by the time we get to December 13, the day that Ella Cook lost her life, there were 15 vacant officer positions, resulting in only five officers protecting campus that day.
A 15-year veteran custodian, Derek Lisi, saw the assailant casing the place for weeks, Madam Secretary, pacing hallways, ducking into bathrooms and staring into room 166.
The custodian reported this to the security contractors on campus, not once, but twice. The security staff responded with, quote, I'm not here for that, end quote. The murderer himself later admitted that he planned to attack for six semesters and had, quote, plenty of opportunities, but he kept chickening out. Opportunities that Brown's gross negligence allowed.
At 4:05 p.m., Providence Fire Department was alerted that shots were fired at Barus and Holley Engineering Building. Instead of activating campus emergency alarm system, Brown waited 17 minutes knowing that there was an active shooter on campus to alert students of that threat. During the 17-minute void of official communication, the assailant was able to fire at least 44 rounds from a nine millimeters handgun, completely unchallenged, and escape.
Responding law enforcement then quickly realized the security cameras were nonexistent, turned off and unstaffed throughout the remainder of the day, the university proceeded to send out and subsequently retract multiple falsehoods regarding the suspect and another active shooter near campus. Brown University's leadership didn't just fail to protect its students, they actively, actively dismantled every layer of protection that could have stopped this massacre and prevented the murder of an MIT professor two days later.
Madam Secretary, it is clear to me that Brown, in my opinion, has violated the Clery Act. And, Madam Secretary, will you please confirm that your department is investigating this matter in a timely and a thorough fashion?
McMahon responded that her department was actively investigating Brown for violating the Clery Act.
"Senator, we are aware of a lot of these allegations with Brown, and we are actively conducting a Clery Act investigation into Brown," she replied.
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