<p>Hey. this is a discussion site. It’s what we do. It’s not a court of law. </p>
<p>It’s certainly what I do and certainly what you do.</p>
<p>Not denying your right to your opinion. I am, however, giving reasons why I disagree with you here.</p>
<p>I agree with much of what garland has posted. It is not a legal argument. He should not be required to disclose based on the law. He should not lose his job necessarily and so on. And it is rather complex. But I do think an ethical argument can be made that someone killed their family and wasn’t convicted due to insanity, might be pertinent to know when considering someone for a teaching position. I understand the person’s desire to put the past behind him. But again, I mentioned how pedophiles, even if “cured,” seem to be required to register their locations. I’m not saying anything should be required in this case but it does bring up some ethical issues. No easy answers. </p>
<p>I also think by not concealing his past, this man could make a difference…as example of someone who was able to redeem his life…and use that to benefit others who have either committed a crime or have suffered serious mental illness.</p>
<p>cobrat, if full disclosure would deem this guy unemployable…why so? If it is so, then there is a reason why some might be hesitant to hire someone who killed his family but wasn’t guilty due to insanity… for certain types of jobs.</p>
<p>Say someone has a history of molesting children. But through therapy, has been found to be completely “cured.” There are many viable jobs for a person who has redeemed himself, but hiring that person to work with youth is likely opening a minefield.</p>
<p>Fine. cobrat. But you’re disagreeing with something I’m not saying.</p>
<p>That’s what’s confusing me.</p>
<p>Its perhaps best to use terms like “managed” , “stabilized” or “treated” rather than “cured” when one discusses certain mental health disorders or behavioral manifestations of mental health disorders. There are not “cures” for some of the disorders being discussed here.</p>
<p>** ETA also, some individuals may have a psychotic episode without having a chronic illness such as schizophrenia.</p>
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<p>Due to stigmatization against current and past sufferers of mental illness…some of which has even been demonstrated on this very thread. </p>
<p>A key reason why employers are barred from asking about an applicant’s history of mental illness unless there’s a compelling reason one or more of those illnesses has a narrowly defined direct impact on his/her ability to fulfill the job’s duties. A burden which is the employer’s to prove according to my labor lawyer friends. </p>
<p>That’s the key difference between the case of pedophiles whose criminal inclinations have been manifestly proven to seriously negative impact on their abilities to work with youth and the case of the Millikin U Prof. </p>
<p>Considering the latter, by all accounts so far, has had a great career and the fact he is working with mostly young adults…your references to pedophiles is a bit of an emotionally charged red herring.</p>
<p>Good point jym626. Wonder if he continues to need/use medication to treat his diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia. My understanding is that it is rare for paranoid schizophrenia to simply abate, with no other difficulties. </p>
<p>Also curious how the students and parents at Milliken will respond to this news and if they will perceive St. James in the same way as the university is. Being fearful or cautious in response to him is not discrimination based on mental illness, it is fear based on past behavior. I would be interested in knowing how the rest of his life is going. As I mentioned up thread, just because he is successful as a professor does not mean he hasn’t had other difficulties. We simply wouldn’t know of them.</p>
<p>Cobrat, I don’t really mean to draw a corollary with pedophilia. It just was an instance of a “disease” that seems to be fully disclosed, such as registering one’s location. It just is what came to mind as an example of disclosure. </p>
<p>My guess is that he is not fully “cured,” but has been treated (could still be treated with medication, who knows), and is an example of someone who has fully turned his life around. It just is a tricky and complex situation because in some other cases, someone with a history of insanity / paranoid schizophrenia, or someone who has been capable of carrying out murder, may relapse. That’s why people may have a desire that such things are fully disclosed about those with whom they work or those who are mentoring their kids and so on. It may not be fair. It is not legal. But I understand it. I understand the fear, cautiousness and reluctance that some may have in working with people with such behaviors in their past, as lindz wrote too.</p>
<p>Is it that hard to understand the cautiousness that some may have in such cases? Say a person was married to an alcoholic, which is a disease. Say the alcoholic spouse dies or they divorce. Is it not so hard to comprehend that the remaining spouse may feel reluctance to be in a relationship with a recovering alcoholic who may lead an exemplary life and is fully sober, for fear that person may relapse and they don’t want to take that chance having lived with an alcoholic in the past? This is not on the same level of killing, but an example of why even if legalities are not involved, there is some understandable reason why some may be fearful or cautious around someone who has certain behaviors in their past that are, in SOME cases, NOT ALWAYS fully “cured.”</p>
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<p>Private individuals have a right to shun or otherwise not associate with others on such basis.</p>
<p>However, there’s a major difference between private individuals not associating with others on such basis and employers deciding to hire/not hire/fire someone for being part of a protected class on the basis of a recognized disability. </p>
<p>There’s also a failure to recognize that:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>He was under the influence of a drug(glue sniffing) which some doctors involved in the case felt contributed to the mental illness which caused him to kill his family.</p></li>
<li><p>He was 15 years old at the time the crime occurred and thus, a legal minor. Juvenile records for crimes committed as a juvenile are, depending on jurisdiction, sealed by the court once the sentence has been served/case adjudicated and the juvenile reaches the age of majority. </p></li>
<li><p>He hasn’t had any apparent issues in 40 years since he’s been deemed well enough to be released. </p></li>
<li><p>Asking for someone to live under a cloud of suspicion on the basis of fears in absence of evidence of subsequent wrongdoing after the incident…especially if it has been 40 years since strikes me as morally and ethically wrong. If you keep someone living under a cloud of suspicion…especially if it’s mainly sustained by fears/prejudices by the peanut gallery of public opinion…he/she is effectively going to end up wearing that Scarlett letter allowing all comers to persecute him/her as their prejudices/fears/etc see fit.</p></li>
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<p>As long as we’re discussing what we know from newspaper articles, according to the Sun-Times one:</p>
<p>—He planned it ahead of time</p>
<p>–he stated he thought of using the glue sniffing for courage</p>
<p>–he stated that the family members annoyed him</p>
<p>–people in town said he was argumentative and tended to be dismissive of adults, as if he knew better</p>
<p>–he tried to cover up the killings through a plan he’d made ahead of time</p>
<p>I have no idea if he is or was schizophrenic, but if you described this guy above to me, I’d say he sounds like a sociopath (who can, by the way, fake mental illness.)</p>
<p>[Edit–Ducking!]</p>
<p>The guy is 62-63 now. Many professors have retired at that age or by 65. I would expect the powers-that-be would pressure him behind the scenes to retire in a year or two.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the answer to this dilemma is. I think it would be much harder to pull off such a re-invention of oneself in the digital age. I still wonder how they found him out–why was anyone looking for him?</p>
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<p>They would need to be careful of how they “pressure” him as if it’s approached in the wrong ways, TPTB may end up facing an employment discrimination/harassment claim because he was a past sufferer of mental illness. That’s one thing no employer needs if they can avoid it. </p>
<p>And you’d be surprised at how many employers do screw up in similar situations even with corporate counsel. My labor lawyer friends saw it firsthand when they sued them on behalf of their clients and won large judgments with onerous additional non-monetary penalties for the employer as punishment to boot.</p>
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<p>Full disclosure without any legal imperative would sound kind of silly. Maybe someone shoplifted at 15, did drugs at 18, drove drunk a few times at 21. Should they confess to all these whenever they apply for a job?</p>
<p>There are a lot of assumptions being made in this thread.</p>
<p>One is that nobody at Milliken U knew. I don’t know whether anyone did. Certainly, though the university hasn’t issued any statement to the effect that he did NOT disclose. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the U did know and made the decision to hire him anyway. The heinous act he committed took place 20 years before he was hired. I think it is entirely possible that someone at Millken was aware of his past and chose to keep it confidential.</p>
<p>sorghum–good question. let me amend–I think when your actions caused another person(s) grievous harm, there’s something very problematical for me to your pro-actively hiding them for your own gain. It goes quite beyond not disclosing on a job application to actually burying your identity including a name change.</p>
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<p>Many employers ask applicants to give these info on the website before they further consider the application. The only exception is minor traffic violation. They will dig out if you hide.</p>
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<p>Garland, Well said.</p>
<p>If a young man is charged with date rape and the prosecutor decides not to prosecute but the college tosses him from school should he disclose that at a job interview?</p>
<p>Did he, in this example, in fact rape her?</p>