Calls mount to remove metal detectors from NYC schools
A student has not been shot in a New York City school over the past 13 years, an era in which school shootings across the U.S. have become sadly commonplace. But there is a growing cry to rid the city’s schools of metal detectors, the very tool some observers credit with keeping them safe.
Some parent groups and advocates say the scanners installed at the city’s most troubled institutions more than two decades ago are now unneeded because of low crime rates, and they condemn them as discriminatory, since by and large they sit in schools serving minority neighborhoods.
“Making students have to go through metal detectors to go to school sends a terrible message to students about where they are headed and how they are viewed,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York City Civil Liberties Union.