One early morning in the spring of my senior year of high school, I do not remember the exact date merely that it was the spring, I walked into my Advanced Placement Environmental Science class, or APES as it was colloquially known. I had taken AP classes throughout my four years of high school and was very familiar with many of the people in the room that morning, indeed many of them I had known for years stretching all the way back to kindergarten.

The teacher of the class was an interesting sort. He was very passionate about what he taught, but that sometimes led to some very intense material in the class, such as videos produced by animal rights activists on animal experimentation and maltreatment. It was the viewing of one of those shocking video that created the circumstances that spring morning that would haunt me to this day.

The day started off ordinarily enough doing a few worksheets, reviewing the lesson plan, and then watching a video. The video in question was a brief ten-minute documentary on a British company that used mice as test subjects while loosely adhering to humane treatment guidelines. My classmates and I expressed suitable outrage at these acts. Then in a bid to get discussion started the teacher asked a question “What if we used human prisoners as test subjects instead?” and the class erupted in agreement.

While I sat at my desk struck dumb in astonishment over both the question and the response, my fellow students wasted no time in precipitously volunteering their agreement that there was something justified in punishing criminals in such a fashion and that they even deserved it. After my initial shock I managed to come to my senses and make a rebuttal to such a horrifying prospect. I responded that testing chemicals on prisoners was on par with Nazi atrocities and that it betrayed any ideal of human justice. I implored my classmates to see that so much of justice depends not on handing down a punishment, but in rising above the criminal act, that being better than a criminal is preferable to simply getting even. My response served to bolster a few of my fellows who offered their own misgivings about such a practice and questioning whether it was right.

One student, the one who sat right next to me in fact, took particular umbrage at the idea that it was unjust to punish criminals this way. He launched into a tirade about justice, arguing that there was no such thing and that it was merely a ploy that the powerful use to control people. The conviction and vigor with which he delivered this speech left me deeply alarmed. Once I gathered my thoughts again I attempted once more to push back against the idea of using humans as unwilling test subjects and to counteract the notion that justice was some flight of fancy by powerful individuals.

Fortunately, the bell rang and class ended shortly after with my fellow students filing out to their next class or their morning break. I was left visibly trembling for the next hour by what I had seen in that class. In just a few short minutes and with one question I had seen good people, students who I had known and admired for years, wholeheartedly supporting committing atrocities against people merely because they had committed a crime. In that instant, I gained a tremendous insight into how an otherwise decent rational person can commit terrible atrocities. In short, I came face to face with the banality of evil.

That dramatic day was never brought up in class again. There was no follow-up or class wide reflection, no teachable moment. It faded from view and memory as just another day of high school unremarkable and unimportant. But not for me, for me that day is marked. I still reflect on that day even these few short years later. If I should live through one hundred years I never want to forget that day and what I learned. I learned that good people can endorse heinous acts if they believe that they are justified and deserved. But, I also learned how one person standing up can make a difference and encourage others to do the same.