Florida State University lifted its class attendance mandate after students protested the directive that called for them to return to classes just days after a mass shooting on campus left two dead and six injured.
Students and instructors will now have the option to attend classes remotely starting Monday, with absences excused for those who choose not to attend at all, the university announced Saturday night.
“We want everyone to receive the support and help they need,” FSU President Richard McCullough said in a letter to students and faculty.
“For some students that may mean not going back into the classroom. For others, the idea of community and gathering, as well as the opportunity to focus on academics, may be beneficial. There is no single right answer for everyone.”
McCullough said certain courses, like lab classes, will resume in person. But students who feel they cannot complete a course will also have the option to request an incomplete grade, he added.
The decision came in response to pushback from students, who created an online petition blasting the university’s quick return to the deadly scene as both “inappropriate and insensitive” and calling for excused absences and remote learning for those still processing the traumatic event.
“It is not okay to be asking students, who just experienced such a traumatic moment, to return right back to where it happened so soon,” the petition, which garnered 1,408 signatures, said.
“This will cause extreme distress and likely panic attacks for many, which we already saw that it did with FSU’s inconsiderate organizing of item pick-up being held in the very place where the shooting took place, the day after it happened,” the petition continued.
“We were given a week off school for snow; we can accommodate students who just nearly lost their lives.”
The shooter, identified by police as Phoenix Ikner, is accused of starting his deadly rampage near the campus’s student union building, with harrowing footage capturing the lone gunman unloading multiple rounds as a terrifying scene of carnage and panic unfolded Thursday afternoon.
The 20-year-old FSU student, who is the stepson of a Leon County sheriff’s deputy, used his stepmother’s former service pistol in the deadly attack, according to police, who shot and arrested him shortly after responding to the scene.
Two Aramark food service employees — Robert Morales, 57, and Tiru Chabba, 45 — were killed in the deadly attack, and six others were wounded.
Police have not disclosed a motive for the mass shooting.
Ikner was among those being treated at a local hospital and is expected to survive.
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