Why didn't Hogwarts shut down after these type of events?

Question

I saw this article from Screen Rant. Wonderful article mind you, it makes me curious that those the points gathered there are very valid to the school must be shut down especially when Voldemort returned. However, I don't agree with the 9th and 5th one. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Professor McGonagall was worried about what's happening to the students regarding the basilisk's attack.

Students must be sent home, I'm afraid this would be the end of Hogwarts.

Though I'm not sure if she said that in the book, but that's not the point here. The point here is that danger that is happening in Hogwarts. It's so ridiculous that Hogwarts is a school that doesn't prioritize the safety of the students. Shall I put the list for you and I will just copy it from the article if you don't mind =).

1. The Chamber of Secrets opened twice

   Good point! The first time the Chamber of Secrets was opened was when Voldemort was at school. He opened the Chamber and set the basilisk on Muggle-born students and then blamed everything on Hagrid. The school should have shut down when the attacks kept going on, but it definitely should have been shut down after Moaning Myrtle died. The death of a student and the fact that other students were petrified is a good reason to shut the school down for a while. Considering the fact that the first time the Chamber of Secrets was opened that a student died, you would think it reopening a second time would be good enough reason to close the school right away. Given that Hagrid and others were alive and a part of what happened, it’s not like it was that long ago. The school should have been closed once the first attack happened and not reopened again until the monster had been identified and stopped.

2. Umbridge used Physical Punishments

   Potterhead fans almost hated her more than the Dark Lord himself. While Voldemort was often one of the worst things to happen to Hogwarts, Umbridge was almost as bad. She might not have been in league with Voldemort at the time, but she was truly vile. She used physical torture as punishment during detentions by making students carve words into the back of their hands over and over. This is a completely wild thing to happen, and the school should have been shut down once this started happening.

3. When Voldemort possesses Quirrell

   During Harry Potter's time at Hogwarts, there were multiple times when Voldemort and his plans to come back to power put Harry and all the other students at risk. This started early on in Harry’s first year. It was pretty ridiculous that Dumbledore housed the Sorcerer’s Stone at Hogwarts in the first place. But, after Quirrell, who had Voldemort on the back of his head, tried to kill Harry to get the stone, there should have at least been some sort of inquiry. Instead, things just went right back to normal.

4. Cedric Diggory died at the Triwizard Tournament

   This is one of the most horrifying things that happened to a Hogwarts student during Harry’s time at the school. While Cedric didn’t actually die at the school, he did die under mysterious circumstances that were connected to a school event.The Triwizard Tournament was so dangerous anyway that it shouldn’t have been reinstated. After Cedric died, some serious consideration about the school and its safety measures should have happened.

5. When Voldemort came back to power

   After Voldemort came back to power at the end of The Goblet of Fire, it would have been wise to just shut Hogwarts down. Of course, the Ministry didn’t actually want to admit he was back, but after it was confirmed, Hogwarts should have been shut down for a time. While lots of people insisted that being around Dumbledore was the safest place to be, clearly this isn't actually true as so many bad things happened at the school.

6. A Dark secret from a Defense against the Dark Arts Teacher

   So many of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers posed a safety risk to the students. First, there was Quirrell, and then there was Lockhart who was a fraud,Lupin a werewolf,Moody who was actually a Death Eater impersonating the Auror and of course, Umbridge. While Snape is the loathsome of most students, Dumbledore needed him to accomplish the plan. Considering how many professors were horrible to the students, it would have been a good idea to shut the school down and rethink it.

7. After the Battle of Hogwarts

   This is interesting.One of the most tragic things that ever happened at Hogwarts was the Battle of Hogwarts. This battle ended the lives of multiple people, including one who was a student at the time. The fact that the school ever reopened after this doesn't make a lot of sense.It’s basically the source of a lot of trauma for many of the students and their families, so it would make more sense to move the wizarding school to some other location.

So all of those events that gathered from Steele (the article writer) makes a valid reason to stop sending students to Hogwarts every year.

REFERENCE: https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-hogwarts-shut-down/

Answer 1

The writer of this Muggle article is ascribing Muggle values to the wizarding world.

The Wizarding world generally seems to accept danger far more readily then the muggle world does, a tournament is held that involves putting students in danger fighting Dragons, their loved ones are captured. They engage in a sport that sees children fly broomsticks at amazing speeds while trying to knock each other off.

Lessons also add a sense of real risk, potions class leads to mishaps, poisonings and students being transformed needing care. The infirmary is almost always treating a student or two for magical mishaps.

So given that the day-to-day life of being a wizard could, at any point, lead to a wizard facing death or worse at the hands of some creature, another wizard or just their own mistakes at spell casting then, it could be argued, the experiences at Hogwarts mean the students of Hogwarts are more prepared for the wizarding world than at any other school.

Also remember many of the events of the early books are glossed over by the Ministry of Magic, they want to cover it all up. Shutting Hogwarts would lead to questions and bring to light the events of the past few years. Dumbledore however truly believes the only way to keep his students safe is to keep them in the protective wards of the school, and any peril caused by being there, well, it's just part of the everyday fun and excitement of being a child wizard.

Answer 2

All of these are different events, and each has its own reasons for why the school wasn't shut down after each one. Let's go through them.

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1. The Chamber of Secrets

   1a. The first time it was opened, the school was nearly shut down. However, after Riddle managed to pin it on Hagrid, and Hagrid got expelled (and the attacks stopped), the school was able to continue, because the "culprit" had been apprehended.

   "You mean all these attacks, sir?" said Riddle, and Harry's heart leapt, and he moved closer, scared of missing anything.
   "Precisely," said the headmaster. "My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be of me to allow you to remain at the castle when term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy ... the death of that poor little girl .... You will be safer by far at your orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic is even now talking about closing the school. We are no nearer locating the er - source of all this unpleasantness . . . ."
   Riddle's eyes had widened.
   "Sir - if the person was caught - if it all stopped -"
   _{Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, chapter 12: "The Polyjuice Potion"}

   1b. The second time it was opened, the school was again very nearly shut down.

   "Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?"
   "Ginny Weasley," said Professor McGonagall.
   Harry felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him.
   "We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow," said Professor McGonagall. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said. . ."
   _{Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, chapter}

   However, like the first time, the one responsible was found - Voldemort - and the attacks stopped, again making it safe. Once the attacks stopped, the school was deemed safe again and thus was able to continue operation.

2. Umbridge

   Ugh, Umbridge. *shudders* This is an isolated case of an abusive teacher.... who, if you'll remember, was there because of the Minister of Magic. The Ministry isn't going to shut down the school because they themselves put an abusive teacher there. After her... incident... at the end of the school year, she was gone and there was no longer an issue. But the Ministry is going to keep mum on it, because she was their fault.

3. Quirrel

   No students were harmed because of this... aside from of course, Harry. The Quirrel incident was a case of a DADA teacher having an unfortunate end.... something which had been happening for many years at that point, because of the curse on the position. Dumbledore knew the cause of it; nobody at the Ministry did. The Ministry was not going to shut down the school because they knew nothing of what had happened.

4. Diggory

   The Triwizard Tournament was a historically dangerous competition that always ended in death, which was why it was discontinued in the first place. Since the Ministry decided to reinstate it, it is again on their heads that the death happened... since, of course, they refuse to acknowledge that Voldemort was back and had killed Cedric. This was again the Ministry's fault, not Hogwarts's.

5. Voldemort's return

   Of course, for quite a while, everyone refused to believe that old Voldy was back. They weren't going to do anything aside from perhaps sack Dumbledore for being a loony for claiming he was back.
   After they finally accepted that he was back, though, everyone knew that Dumbledore was the only wizard that Voldemort had ever feared. It was much safer for the children to be in a place with the most powerful wizard of all time, who Voldemort fears, along with a host of highly powerful and capable wizards (the teachers) than for them to be at home with their parents.

6. The DADA position

   I'll admit, it is unclear why the DADA position wasn't discontinued after it was clear that something would happen to the teacher every year. But as long as there wasn't any danger to the students, Dumbledore wasn't going to stop such an important subject, and the Ministry didn't start interfering until Harry's fifth year, as they respected Dumbledore and didn't want to cross him. For instance, after it came out that Lupin was a werewolf, he immediately resigned, so they had no reason to take action.

7. The Battle of Hogwarts

   This was the final, pivotal battle in a war against the worst Dark wizard of all time. Voldemort attacked the school, and they defended it... and defeated him. It came at a high cost, but instead of being the place where students died in a Voldemort attack, it became the place where Voldemort was defeated by the people of Hogwarts. It isn't the school's fault that they were attacked; so why should they get shut down, especially after the attacker was dead? After Voldemort was defeated, all of the school's troubles were over.

Answer 3

The answer is simple: you don't close such an old institution like that, especially with how little outside supervision there seems​ to be, whether from inside or outside the magical world. Plus, everyone wants to keep it open anyway.

The Ministry of Magic seems to be doing very little in the ways of checks and controls over Hogwarts, leaving Dumbledore to his own devices most of the time. They are more concerned with preventing Muggles and the world at large to know about magic, than to reign in the wizards themselves.

Besides, it's Hogwarts, THE school of magic in the UK, one of the oldest, if not the oldest wizard school in the world. Generations upon generations of wizards were educated there, and the place is more or less alive and magic on its own. It's more than a school, it's a living symbol. And you don't get rid of living symbols that easily.

Plus, everyone wants to keep it open: Dumbledore to train young wizards, and especially Harry, in prevision of Voldemort's return, and Voldemort to train a new generation of wizards to serve him and do his bidding. He did want to run it with only one House, after all, the one he was part of when he was being trained there himself.

As for why it was reopened after the Battle of Hogwarts, you only need to compare it to the Battle of Britain in WWII and the damages done by Nazi bombers and V1 to London. There's a big parallel there: Londoners stayed and rebuilt after the war, even the Queen stayed at Buckingham Palace during the air raids, despite fear for her safety.

It's the same thing here: despite all the horrible things that happened, the wizards will rebuild and resume their lives as normal, in defiance of adversity.

Answer 4

What's the alternative?

Hogwarts is not the best or most respectable or most traditional or most preferable school for wizarding kids, it's the only wizarding school in the region.

The decision to shut down Hogwarts is not equivalent to a decision to shut down a particular school or other institution in our world - Hogwarts is not just a school, it constitutes the whole educational system in the region. The decision to shut down it down is equivalent to shutting down all schools in the country.

It's a decision that might be taken in some circumstances, but it raises the bar much higher, and explains why Hogwarts wasn't shut down in circumstances when an equivalent muggle school would have - in the muggle case, the alternative is to send the kids to some other school; in the Hogwarts case it means a whole generation of wizards that's (at best) homeschooled except for those who can afford to ship their kids to France or USA or whatever.

In real life, if it becomes obvious that the education system in some country is systematically bad and has dangers or horrible abuse (we have real life precedent), then the response is not to shut the whole system down - what does happen in such cases is reform, changing policies, possibly changing leaders, and replacing employees who don't fit the new policies or the new leaders. That's exactly what has been done in response to the events at Hogwarts.

Answer 5

At first, because Dumbledore didn't decide so, and the parents trust him. And after Umbridge takes office, because the people in charge don't care enough, or worse (later in the story). And why (in the sense of, why does JK Rowling “let that happen?”) It's all political commentary.

To demonstrate this, consider the motivation for wizards having a public administration (Hogwarts, but also the Ministry of Magic) in the first place. Having no issue with basic needs (shelter, food, clothing) being met thanks to magic, a society of wizards doesn't have to raise taxes, build and maintain infrastructure, create a military force etc. The Ministry of Magic therefore has a much narrower focus than a Muggle government (that's why there is only one such Ministry). What would wizards need a government for, then? Broadly speaking, to maintain the peace: to prevent a Dark Lord from ever rising to power again (hence, aurors, the “Unforgivable” part in Unforgivable Curses, Azkaban and the whole judicial apparatus), and to make sure the kids are taught to fend off for themselves (hence Hogwarts, the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, and the whole Defense Against Dark Arts song and dance, useless as it turns out to be).

The fact that many, if not most of these institutions fail or backfire, at least for a time, is of course an Aesop which parallels the real world; e.g. dementors “protecting” Hogwarts are an obvious (and timely) commentary on the dangers of throwing away liberty for the illusion of safety in the face of terrorism / boogeyman du jour. But again like in the real world, the wizards' nation of the British Isles doesn't just give up and throw away its institutions in the face of such setbacks, nor (as has been commented elsewhere already) is it as risk-averse for their kids as modern Western parents are. Regarding Hogwarts specifically, it can be argued that Dumbledore's personal prestige and past actions in the service of wizardry peace (albeit in a rather... personal style, as befits a wizard of course) are enough of a guarantee for parents to grant him what amounts to a direct, if untold, mandate; despite what the Ministry of Magic (at some point) would like parents to believe, he wields much more personal authority and political clout than a head-of-education kind of public servant in a democracy — A quite British notion of legitimacy and government indeed!

Of course, that mandate fades after Rita Skeeter's smear campaign (another fairly transparent Aesop regarding the responsibility of the press), and the time when things start to really go sideways for Howgarts (to the point that neither the elder Weasley brothers, nor Harry Potter and his close friends, bother to attend anymore) is when a regular, “apolitical” public-servant kind of personality, who hates children by her own admission, is appointed in Dumbledore's stead. Long before Voldemort basically turns the entire institution into traitors to their own cause, that administration makes Defense Against Dark Arts teaching useless, waters down grades, makes a mockery of its own misuse of the rule of law etc. while the Ministry propaganda machine is in full force to downplay the actual dangers and keep the kids in a school that doesn't benefit them anymore. Again, the parallel with the real world couldn't be more obvious.