Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

An  Op-Ed on the Media Response to the Virginia Tech Tragedy 
By  Brett A. Sokolow, J.D., Higher Education Attorney 
President, The National Center for Higher Education Risk  Management  
www.ncherm.org 
If  you believe the pundits and talking heads in the aftermath of the 
Virginia Tech  tragedy, every college and university should rush to implement 
 
text-message-based early warning systems, should install loudspeakers 
throughout  
campus, should perform criminal background checks on all incoming students,  
should allow students to install their own locks on their residence hall room 
 
doors, and should exclude from admission or expel students with serious 
mental  
health conditions.  We should  profile loners, establish lockdown protocols 
and develop mass-shooting  evacuation plans.  We should even  arm our 
students 
to the teeth.  In  the immediate aftermath, security experts and college and 
university officials  have been quoted in newspapers and on TV with 
considering 
all of these remedies,  and more, to be able to assure the public that WE ARE 
DOING  SOMETHING. 
Since when do we let the media dictate to us our best  practices?  Do we need 
to do  something?  Do we need to be doing  all or some of these things?  Here’
s  what I think.  These are just my  opinions, informed by what I have 
learned so far in the reportage on what  happened at Virginia Tech.  Because  
that 
coverage is inaccurate and incomplete, please consider these my thoughts so  
far, subject to revision as more facts come to light. 
·       We should not be rushing to  implement text-message-based warning 
systems.  At the low cost of $1 per student per  year, you might ask what the 
downside could be?  Well, the real cost is the $1 per  student that we don’t 
spend on mental health support, where we really need to  spend it.  And, what 
do 
you get for  your $1?  A system that will send an  emergency text to the cell 
phone number of every student who is registered with  the service.  If we 
acknowledge that  many campuses still don’t have the most current mailing 
address 
for some of our  students who live off-campus, is it realistic to expect that 
students are going  to universally supply us with their cell phone numbers?  
You could argue that students are  flocking to sign-up for this service on 
the 
campuses that currently provide it  (less than 50 nationally), but that is 
driven by the panic of current  events.  Next fall, when the shock  has worn 
off, 
apathy will inevitably return, and voluntary sign-up rates will  drop.  How 
about mandating that  students participate?  What about  the costs of the 
bureaucracy we will need to collect and who will input this  data?  Who will 
track 
which students  have yet to give us their numbers, remind them, and hound 
them 
to submit the  information?  Who will update this  database as students 
switch 
cellphone numbers midyear, which many do?  That’s more than a full-time job, 
with  implementation already costing more than the $1 per student.  Some 
students want their privacy.  They won’t want administrators to have  their 
cellphone number.  Some  students don’t have cellphones.  Many students do 
not have 
text services enabled on their phones.  More added cost.  Many professors 
instruct students to  turn off their phones in classrooms.  Texting is 
useless.  It’
s  useless on the field for athletes, while students are swimming, sleeping,  
showering, etc.  And, perhaps most  dangerously, texting an alert may send 
that alert to a psychopath who is also  signed-up for the system, telling him 
exactly what administrators know, what the  emergency plan is, and where to 
go 
to effect the most harm.  Would a text system create a legal duty  that 
colleges and universities do not have, a duty of universal warning?  What 
happens in 
a crisis if the system  is overloaded, as were cellphone lines in Blacksburg? 
 
What happens if the data entry folks  mistype a number, and a student who 
needs warning does not get one?  We will be sued for negligence.  We need to 
spend this time, money and  effort on the real problem:  mental  health. 
·       We should consider  installing loudspeakers throughout campus.  This 
technology has potentially better  coverage than text messages, with much 
less 
cost.  Virginia Tech used such loudspeakers to  good effect during the 
shootings.   
·       We should not rush to  perform criminal background checks (CBCs) on 
all incoming students.  The N.C. State system task force studied this issue  
after two 2004 campus shootings, and decided that the advantages were not 
worth  
the disadvantages.  You might catch  a random dangerous applicant, but most 
students who enter with criminal  backgrounds were minors when they committed 
their crimes, and their records may  have been sealed or expunged.  If  your 
student population is largely of non-traditional age, CBCs may reveal more,  
but 
then you have to weigh the cost and the question of whether you are able to  
perform due diligence on screening the results of the checks if someone is  
red-flagged.  How will you determine  which students who have criminal 
histories 
are worthy of admission and which are  not?  And, there is always the  
reality that if you perform a check on all incoming students and the college  
across 
the street does not, the student with the criminal background will apply  to 
them and not to you.  If you  decide to check incoming students, what will 
you 
do about currently-enrolled  students?  Will you do a state-level  check, or 
a 50 state and federal check (FBI/DOJ)?  Will your admitted applicants be 
willing  to wait the 30-days that it takes to get the results?  Other 
colleges who 
admitted them are  also waiting for an answer.  The  comprehensive check can 
cost $80 per student.  We need to spend this time, money and  effort on the 
real problem:  mental  health. 
·       We should NOT be  considering whether to allow students to install 
their own locks on their  residence hall room doors.  Credit Fox News Live 
for 
this deplorably dumb idea.  If we let students change their locks,  
residential 
life and campus law enforcement will not be able to key into student  rooms 
when they overdose on alcohol or try to commit suicide.  This idea would 
prevent us from saving  lives, rather than help to protect members of our 
community. 
 Mr. Cho could have shot through a lock,  no matter whether it was the 
original or a retrofit.  This is our property, and we need to  have access to 
it.  
We need to focus  our attention on the real issue:  mental health. 
·       Perhaps the most preposterous  suggestion of all is that we need to 
relax our campus weapons bans so that armed  members of our communities can 
defend themselves.  We should NOT allow weapons on  college campuses.  
Imagine 
you  are seated in Norris Hall, facing the whiteboard at the front of the 
room.  
Mr. Cho enters from the back and begins  shooting.  What good is your gun  
going to do at this point?  Many  pro-gun advocates have talked about the 
deterrent and defense values of a  well-armed student body, but none of them 
have 
mentioned the potential  collateral criminal consequences of armed students:  
increases in armed robbery, muggings,  escalation of interpersonal and 
relationship violence, etc.  Virginia, like most states, cannot keep guns  
out of the 
hands of those with potentially lethal mental health crises.  When we talk 
about arming students, we’d  be arming them too.  We need to  focus our 
attention 
on the real issue:  mental health. 
·       We should establish  lockdown protocols that are specific to the 
nature of the threat.  Lockdowns are an established  mass-protection tactic.  
They 
can  isolate perpetrators, insulate targets from threats and restrict 
personal  movement away from a dangerous line-of-fire.  But, if lockdowns are 
just a 
random  response, they have the potential to lock students in with a 
still-unidentified  perpetrator.  If not used correctly,  they have the 
potential to 
lock students into facilities from which they need  immediate egress for 
safety 
reasons.  And, if not enforced when imposed, lockdowns expose us to the 
potential  liability of not following our own policies.  We should also 
establish 
protocols  for judicious use of evacuations.   When police at Virginia Tech  
herded students out of buildings and across the Drill Field, it was based on  
their assessment of a low risk that someone was going to open fire on 
students  
as they fled out into the open, and a high risk of leaving the occupants of  
certain buildings in situ, making evacuation from a zone of danger an  
appropriate escape method.   
·       We should not exclude from  admission or expel students with mental 
health conditions, unless they pose a  substantial threat of harm to 
themselves 
or the community.  Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act  prohibits colleges 
and universities from discrimination in admission against  those with 
disabilities.  It also  prohibits colleges and universities from suspending 
or 
expelling disabled  students, including those who are suicidal, unless the 
student is 
deemed to be a  direct threat of substantial harm in an objective process 
based on the most  current medical assessment available.   Many colleges do 
provide health  surveys to incoming students, and when those surveys disclose 
mental health  conditions, we need to consider what appropriate follow-up 
should 
occur as a  result.  Mr. Cho likely was  schizophrenic or mildly autistic 
(Asperger’s Syndrome?), and identifying those  disabilities early on and 
providing 
support, accommodation--and potentially  intervention--is our issue.   
·       We should consider means  and mechanisms for early intervention with 
students who exhibit behavioral  issues, but we should not profile loners.  
At 
the University of South Carolina, the Behavioral  Intervention Team makes 
many early catches of students whose behavior is  threatening, disruptive or 
potentially self-injurious.  By working with faculty and staff at  opening 
communication and support, the USC model is enhancing campus safety in a  way 
that 
many other campuses are not.  In the aftermath of what happened at Virginia 
Tech, I hope many campuses  are considering a model designed to help raise 
flags 
for early screening and  intervention.  Many students are  loners, isolated, 
withdrawn, pierced, tattooed, dyed, Wiccan, skate rats,  fantasy gamers or 
otherwise outside the “mainstream”.  This variety enlivens the richness of  
college campuses, and offers layers of culture that quilt the fabric of 
diverse  
communities.  Their preferences and  differences cannot and should not be 
cause 
for fearing them or suspecting  them.  But, when any member of the  community 
starts a downward spiral along the continuum of violence, begins to  lose 
contact with reality, goes off their medication regimen, threatens,  
disrupts, or 
otherwise gains our attention with unhealthy or dangerous patterns,  we can’t 
be bystanders any longer.  Our willingness to intervene can make all the 
difference.  All of the pundits insist that random  violence can’t be 
predicted, but 
many randomly violent people exhibit a pattern  of detectable disintegration 
of self, often linked to suicidality.  People around them perceive it.  We 
can 
all be better attuned to those  patterns and our protocols for communicating 
our concerns to those who have the  ability to address them.  This will  
focus 
our attention on the real issue:  mental health.
 
Regards,

Brett A. Sokolow, JD
Special Counsel to  the President, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Special Counsel for Student  Conduct Issues, Warren Wilson College
Special Advisor to the Dean of Campus  Life, Univ. of the Incarnate Word
Special Counsel to the Dean of  Students, Hendrix College

President, The National Center for  
Higher Education Risk Management, Ltd.
"Best Practices for Student  Health and Safety"

(a not-for-profit  corporation)
20 Callery Way
Malvern, PA  19355-2969
Tel. (610) 993-0229
Fax (610)  993-0228
www.ncherm.org



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