Under the protection of the Fire Code she flourishes

When the day comes that the stones of Whitman College combust spontaneously, I will be ready. I will know where my door is because no posters obscure it. I will know how to exit the building because I practice in the University’s regular fire drill rituals.

I have a friend who says she could locate doors and exits without the Fire Code — but she’s an atheist. To the rest of us, the Code is sacred. Without it we might do something dangerous, like using a microwave that other New Jersey colleges deem safe, or leaving through an emergency exit immediately, without pausing for 15 seconds to admire the growing flames. Simply put, our faith in the Code saves us, and nonbelievers are going to burn.

Atheists like my friend are in the business of demanding “proof” that the Code protects us. They point to contrary “evidence” like Montclair State University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, which have better fire safety ratings than the University despite their less draconian fire policies. But here is all the proof you need: No University student has ever died in a campus fire. Compare us to the other 139,203 American schools — especially the 98,817 elementary schools, where unauthorized microwaves and door-posters abound — and you’ll realize just how unique our safety record is. Outside Fitz-Randolph gate, schoolchildren are burning like ants. In fact, a student has died in a school fire as recently as 1958. To an institution as venerable as the University, 57 years without a fire death is hardly longer than a week. A deadly fire could strike today, or tomorrow, or maybe it struck yesterday between my writing of this column and its publication. If our Code is relaxed, we will be in the same danger as the rest of the country’s students. It is a risk we cannot afford.

Sadly, I am one of the last students to believe fully in the sanctity of the Code. Many of my peers are cafeteria Coders at best, removing duct tape from their doors for fire inspections, and vocal atheists at worst. Then there are the polytheists. They accept what is written in the Code, but they want to practice other drills: an active shooter drill, for example. They would pray to a golden calf because of shootings like the 2007 Virginia Tech Massacre, where senior Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 victims to death.

Alas, the polytheists are misguided. They fail to see that the shooting at Virginia Tech, like the 114 shootings in American schools since then, was an isolated incident. We are safe. Our peers are safe, too: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has gone nearly two years without a deadly shooting, and no one has been shot to death on Harvard’s campus since 2009. How rash it would be for the University to adopt a policy preparing us to survive a shooting. Gunmen are simply not a threat.

I have called on the administration to make changes in the past, but, because this is a matter concerning the Code, I am begging them to keep everything the same. Updating safety drills for the twenty-first century would ruin us. We must remember what is written in Matthew 5:18: “Until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Fire Code until everything is accomplished.” If we try to alter the Code, or if we begin to worship other codes, we will face the wrath of God. Nonbelievers are going to continue their cries for ostensibly safe microwaves and the right to place their posters willy-nilly, but we must not listen. We must also ignore the particularly radical breed of extremists who would like to modify the Fire Code in the interest of “safety.” Despite what they may claim, those doors that open after 15 seconds are safe. The fire, like a gunman, will politely wait.

Newby Parton is a freshman from McMinnville, Tenn. He can be reached at newby@princeton.edu.