Key point: Former Brown student Alex Shieh told Fox News Digital he believes the university’s spending priorities left aging campus buildings without modern security, helping the gunman move undetected. Shieh, who previously investigated administrative pay and faced then-dropped discipline, highlighted the university’s large administrative payroll and substantial endowment. Authorities say the shooter killed two people at Brown on Nov. 13, then an MIT professor days later; the suspect was later found dead after a multi-day manhunt.
Former Brown Student Says Spending Priorities Left Campus Undersecured After Fatal Shooting
Split image showing Brown University victims Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, alongside MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, who was killed.
Alex Shieh, a former Brown University student and friend of slain student Ella Cook, told Fox News Digital that the university’s spending priorities left campus underprepared and lacking adequate security. Shieh argued that older buildings have not been retrofitted with modern surveillance and access controls because resources are directed elsewhere.
“I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that the old buildings on campus have never been retrofitted with updated security systems, because that’s not what the priorities are with the spending,” Shieh said. “They know people will want to come to Brown anyway, irrespective of the facilities, because of the Ivy League name.”
“It is sort of confusing to people that you have a school with a large endowment and steep costs of attendance—how come the buildings don’t have cameras?” Shieh added.
Shieh has long criticized what he describes as bloated administrative spending at Brown. While a student, he served as publisher of the Brown Spectator and drew attention for probing administrators’ pay and duties. He said he surveyed administrators to better understand their responsibilities and was met with resistance from faculty and university officials.
At one point the university disciplined Shieh, accusing him of causing emotional harm, invading privacy, misrepresenting the university and violating operational rules. The university later dropped all disciplinary charges, and Shieh’s complaints about administrative growth ultimately drew national attention, including testimony at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on free speech and university spending.
“There’s about 4,000 administrators at a school of about 11,000 students,” Shieh said, arguing that the growth in administrative staff contributes to rising tuition and a misallocation of resources that can leave core campus needs underfunded.
Authorities say that on Nov. 13, Claudio Neves-Valente entered Brown’s campus and fatally shot Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov. Two days later, he drove to Brookline, Massachusetts, and killed Nuno Loureiro, an MIT nuclear physicist. Neves-Valente evaded capture during a multi-day manhunt and was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot in a storage shed in Salem, New Hampshire.
Investigators credited a homeless man who lived on or near Brown’s campus for providing a detailed account of an interaction with Neves-Valente that helped lead authorities to the suspect. Shieh said improved surveillance and preventative security technology might have hastened capture of the shooter and potentially prevented the subsequent deaths.
Context: Shieh emphasized that his criticism targets spending priorities rather than the university’s mission or its students. He said his aim was to highlight institutional choices that, in his view, leave safety and day-to-day facilities behind more visible administrative and compensation priorities.
