"Yes, the evidence seems to be mounting that does not look good for the university at this time."
On the basis of his being briefly involuntarily committed a year and a half ago? I don't think so. I'd bet that every major college in the country has a few students walking around campus in any given year who have been involuntarily committed at some point.
And it's not a matter of "PC culture run amok." Depression, schizophrenia, etc. are mental illnesses, not religions, political persuasions or choices of any sort. People can and do recover from mental illnesses, some completely, some requiring ongoing treatment or medication. Even many schizophrenics can lead fully functional, safe and non-threatening lives. So to suggest that VT should have, or could have if not for liberal political correctness, kicked him out of school because he was once held for psychiatric evaluation is just ... well ... wrong.
BTW, the language quoted by MD from the order is standard boilerplate for an involuntary committal order, even temporary. Standard practice, as I understand it, is temporary detention for evaluation, after which a determination is made as to longer term commitment. That is apparently what happened here - the determination being that outpatient treatment was called for, but not committal to a residential institution. The language does not imply, either, that he made any specific threats. That's just the way it works - he did something that attracted law enforcement attention and his odd behavior was enough to justify holding him for evaluation. Note that the language offers multiple, alternate justifications for detention.
And another thing, as an adult - a legal status of the utmost importance to some earlier today - Cho's medical records, including psychiatric evaluations, are subject to health records privacy laws. In addition, as an adult, his college can't even send his grades to his parents without his consent, much less share what they knew about his mental state UNLESS he made specific threats to harm himself or others. The only issue with these facts that I see is that the threshold for getting around the privacy laws appears to be materially higher than the threshold for the state to involuntarily commit. That apparent flaw, though, has nothing to do with liberal or conservative and seems relatively easy to fix.
Finally, discussing his mental state or what might be done to improve how the law deals with cases like his (that is, before he broke completely) in no way makes or attempts to make him a victim or attempts to relieve him of responsibility for his crimes. The point is to figure out what went wrong and try, perhaps vainly, to avoid similar things from happening in the future.
Partisan politics or political ideology has nothing to do with it. Unless someone is proposing an ultimate solution to mental illness. |
