In This Issue:

September 1999—Vol. 28, No. 1

Learning to Get Along After a Tragedy

The shots fired by two Colorado high school students at their classmates and teachers in April echoed across the country. In few places were they more clearly heard than in the halls of the University of Denver College of Law, less than 20 miles away from Littleton’s Columbine High School.

"I was in disbelief," said third-year student Kristin Angus, who learned of the shootings around lunchtime that day. Even then, however, Angus, who grew up in Golden, Colo., just 15 minutes north of Littleton, couldn’t help wondering if the tragedy could have been prevented.

"We should have known better," she said. "It is not easy growing up in those communities. Everyone is so alike. Anyone who is just slightly different is glaringly different from the rest of the crowd."

The evening of the shootings, University of Denver law professor Trip MacIntosh entered his international business transactions class and announced that he would not be teaching that night. Instead, he challenged his students by asking them what they as law students could do to prevent future tragedies. For Angus and other students in MacIntosh’s class, the challenge was a catalyst for action.

Angus and classmates Bryan Schwarz, who graduated in May, and Will Sales, now a second-year student, started Helping Empower through Alternative Resolutions (HEAR). Starting as early as this fall, teams of University of Denver law students will be assigned to 10-20 high schools in the county’s school districts. Working with high school students to organize a public service project, law students will also teach the teens conflict resolution skills.

"The law is really designed to protect people who are different," Angus said. "Our goal is to make these kids see that it is OK to be different and accept one another."

According to Angus, law students will at first directly mediate conflicts between high school students. As the year progresses, the law students will teach the teenagers to facilitate their own conflicts. By the end of the project and school year, Angus hopes, law students will simply observe high school students resolving their issues peacefully by themselves.

HEAR held its first organizational meeting just days after the Columbine incident, and more than 200 students signed up. "The response has been tremendous," Angus said. "People in the Denver community really want to help."

"If we can teach children how to be mediators and negotiators, we can help them resolve their disputes peacefully," said second-year student Melissa Helmbrecht, the Law Student Division’s 15th Circuit governor, who has also been involved in HEAR. "Training people to be problem solvers is good for the future of law, too. They won’t need to resort to the courts–or violence–as often." •