33 chimes at Cornell

A few days ago Cornell University sent out an email communication telling of a gathering in Sage Chapel to honour the memories of the victims at Virginia Tech. The whole thing has been posted by someone here. This is one detail from the programme for the occasion:

Prior to the service, the chimes of McGraw Tower rang thirty-three times in memory of each victim of the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech on Monday, April 16, 2007.

And here are the opening remarks from a speech by David J. Skorton, President of Cornell:

We Are One.

We are one; one community, one people, one planet.

We are here today to affirm that one-ness and to draw strength from each other, to find peace in each other, to care for each other and to share our love.

We are one.

We are here to bear witness to the passing of the 33 members of our family at Virginia Tech University who have met an untimely and terrible fate.

We are here for all of those who are gone, for all 33.

We are here for the 32 who have passed from the immediate to another place, not by their own choice.

We are also here for the 1 who has also passed.

We are one.

You might think that, even if the killer merits some sympathy on account of his mental state, to erase the distinction between him and his victims by treating them all alike as merely having 'passed' is a moral simplification. An alumnus of Cornell who received this communication was Professor Matthew Kramer of Churchill College, Cambridge. This is his response to it, posted here with his permission:

I should convey to you frankly my reaction to the gathering that is recounted below. I regard as contemptible the fact that the McGraw Tower chimes rang thirty-three times rather than thirty-two times. There were only thirty-two victims of Monday's carnage. Those innocent people were slaughtered by someone whom Cornell has seen fit to classify as a victim and to honor with a commemorative chime. I likewise regard as contemptible the remarks by President Skorton in which he emphatically treats the victims and the murderer as morally on a par. Had I been present when those remarks were delivered, I would have walked out. (Actually, I probably would have walked out at an earlier stage, in response to Dean Fuchs's apparent inability to say that people had been murdered at Virginia Tech. His only reference to their having been murdered - a fleeting reference - is in a quotation from his counterpart at Virginia Tech, who is understandably less inclined to gloss over unpleasant facts with euphemisms such as "unexpectedly and violently died.")

Your message has proved to be timely. I had been intending this very evening to arrange a donation of [a sizeable amount] to the Government Department at Cornell. In the aftermath of my receipt of your message, however, I have decided to assign the money elsewhere (to the public library in my hometown). I am not interested in contributing funds to a university whose chief administrators are unable or unwilling to distinguish morally between a murderer and his victims.