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Friday, April 27, 2007
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Mental-Health Lawyers Caution Colleges Against Disciplining Students for Emotional Difficulties
More coverage: Links to all of The Chronicle's coverage of the shootings at Virginia Tech.
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College administrators should be careful not to discriminate against troubled students in response to Seung-Hui Cho's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, psychologists and lawyers said at a news briefing on Thursday.
Violent behavior is rare among people with mental illness, said Robert Bernstein, a psychologist and executive director of the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, which sponsored the briefing. Students should feel comfortable seeking counseling without worrying that their colleges will discipline them, said Karen A. Bower, a senior staff lawyer for the center.
The Bazelon Center represented students in two recent high-profile lawsuits against colleges that had suspended the students' privileges based on mental-health concerns. Last summer Hunter College of the City University of New York settled a lawsuit with an anonymous female student who had been barred from campus housing after an overdose of Tylenol landed her in the hospital (The Chronicle, August 24, 2006). In October, George Washington University settled a lawsuit with Jordan Nott, a student it had suspended after he sought treatment for depression (The Chronicle, November 1, 2006).
Lawyers for the Bazelon Center worry that the Virginia Tech incident will prompt similar actions against troubled students. The university has drawn sharp criticism for how it handled Mr. Cho despite evidence of his mental-health problems.
"We do have a concern that colleges will continue this trend of what we see as overreacting and placing students on involuntary leave," Ms. Bower said. Many students prefer to be treated for mental illnesses while at college rather than being removed from the campus, she said.
Two main misimpressions prevent colleges from doing the right thing when it comes to dealing with troubled students, said Ira Burnim, the center's legal director. For one, he said, administrators think that the more they try to support such students, the greater their institutional liability will be. Administrators also think they can use rules that prohibit students from engaging in "endangering" behavior, for example, to remove those who have mental illnesses. Both views reflect incomplete understanding of the law, he said.
Colleges' various policies on students' mental health show that the institutions are just beginning to navigate that terrain, Mr. Burnim said. The Bazelon Center plans to release soon a model policy that would encourage students to seek treatment and ensure that any disciplinary action is based on dangerousness and not discrimination, said Ms. Bower.
In response to the persistent question being raised of how Mr. Cho's attack might have been prevented, Mr. Bernstein, the executive director, did not criticize the counseling center at Virginia Tech but instead cited a mental-health-service industry that is in "shambles."
"The public system is supposed to be the safety net," he said. "But unless and until a crisis occurs, the system won't respond."