Some Co-Eds Evicted for Suicide Attempts

Parent Cafe
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<p>Some Co-Eds Evicted for Suicide Attempts
By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 1, 2006</p>

<p>AP-New York
A depressed Hunter College student who swallowed handfuls of Tylenol, then saved her own life by calling 911, was in for a surprise when she returned to her dorm room after the ordeal. The lock had been changed on the door.</p>

<p>She was being expelled from the residence, the school informed her, because she violated her housing contract by attempting suicide. The 19-year-old was allowed to retrieve her belongings in the presence of a security guard.</p>

<p>Policies barring potentially suicidal students from campus dorms have popped up across the country in recent years as colleges have struggled to decide how to best curb an estimated 1,100 suicides a year.</p>

<p>But just as quickly, some of those rules have come under attack.</p>

<p><a href=“http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COLLEGE_SUICIDES?SITE=NYNSN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT[/url]”>http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COLLEGE_SUICIDES?SITE=NYNSN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>don’t even know what to say…</p>

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<p>OMG
Never ever try and kill your self with Tylenol-
it can cause such severe liver damage that you wont recover
actually even just taking a slightly higher than normal dose can cause liver damage
<a href=“http://www.theindychannel.com/health/9762968/detail.html[/url]”>http://www.theindychannel.com/health/9762968/detail.html&lt;/a&gt;
I can’t even speak to the ethics of the college :(</p>

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<p>This has been discussed on CC before, and I agree with the college’s stand. If someone has made a suicide attempt, they need to be psychologically assessed AND they probably need to be back home where they can be supervised by people who know them very well. They don’t need to be in a dorm. The RA can’t take on that responsibility and neither can a roommate.</p>

<p>After the person gets the mental health assistance that they clearly need, and after their therapist clears them to return to college, then they should be allowed to return.</p>

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<p>Ditto Northstarmom,</p>

<p>While it might seem cold and cruel, allowing them to return as if nothing happened is alot worse. Require a clean bill of mental health prior to return.</p>

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<p>NSM, yes, the child should go home. However, that doesn’t mean that the METHOD of getting that child home is acceptable. Would hell have frozen over if the girl’s parents came with her to gather her belongings and arrange for a leave of absence? Furthermore, this isn’t a college issue, this is a housing contract issue! She would still be allowed to attend classes. I could easily imagine a student who would leave her belongings with a friend, move in to someone’s apartment, and go through a rapid slide as she’s now dealing with the fall-out from the suicide attempt and from being kicked out of her home.</p>

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<p>what you have to realize is that maybe HOME is not the best place…to just pack someones stuff up and push them out the door and tell them to leave…does the school have any idea what they are sending the student home to?</p>

<p>how is student supposed to get home…what about money, her belongings, transportation home, what about home- my relatives are moving to a smaller place, another is on vacation</p>

<p>to just send someone off after somethng to traumatic is just cruel…</p>

<p>the school is making the assumption that home is a safe and reasonalbe place</p>

<p>it often is not</p>

<p>I am flabbergasted at the way it was handled, and I am writing the school and telling them how cruel it was</p>

<p>How is the girl supposed t get home with all her stuff- who is buying the tickets? what if the family can’t afford the airfare at that time…</p>

<p>Maybe this girl;s family is close by, but what about other cases</p>

<p>It was not necessary to handle it they way they did, imo, and if that school was on my Ds radar for college, it would no longer be</p>

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<p>Count me among those who feel that the school was right (and prudent) to disallow the girl’s return. If the girl had been allowed to return and then made a subsequent successful attempt, the school may have been responsible and left itself open for a lawsuit. You can’t have it both ways…force the school to retain a student who is at-risk for suicidal behavior and then ALSO hold it responsible if something does happen. Think about it THIS way. If a child commits suicide while living in the parents’ home, NO ONE berates the parent or sues them for not seeking appropriate treatment for their child (and many times they HAVE), but people are VERY QUICK to do that with a school, somehow expecting the school to watch other thousands of students more conscientiously than a parent can watch ONE!</p>

<p>For the student’s OWN safety as well as the protection of the RA’s, the roommate, and everyone else, the school made the right decision.</p>

<p>Now, that said, I’m with aries in that I think this whole process could have been accomplished with a GREAT deal more sensitivity and finesse. </p>

<p>~berurah</p>

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<p>see, you all have safe homes, have a way of getting your kid to and from, but many many don’t…many people are at the edge when it comes to $$ when sending a kid to college and to suddenly have to come up with $$ is an extra hardship on top of everything else</p>

<p>and some families, well, are dysfunctional at best</p>

<p>I am not saying to retain the student, necessarily, but to lock her stuff up, and just send her on her way i just cruel…that school is horrid</p>

<p>IF they are Soooooo concerned about her mental health, they wouldnt do it that way, so the mental health thing and protecting the student doesnt fly</p>

<p>If they DID care, they would not do what they did the way they did it</p>

<p>Imagine if this was YOUR kid, locked out in the hall, told, get out of here…</p>

<p>WHat she goes to the bus station, finds a hotel, tries to get a plane out, with all her stuff, and most likely little $$ and no car</p>

<p>How many of your kids have credit card with enough on it for a plane ticket at short notice?</p>

<p>If they claim compassion, they need to show it with actions, not just words</p>

<p>So, picture this is your kid, your neice or nephew, your neighbor’s son, and they were treated that way</p>

<p>And don’t say, no it could NEVER be my kid…yes it can…</p>

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<p>It’s a college, not the parents, not the guardian, just a place where hopefully decently adjusted people go to get educated. Their responsibility stops when the ability to benefit from the education ends. The other students deserve a drama free environment to pursue their work. Come back when you feel better. Bye-Bye. Tell us where to send your stuff. If she does not get along with her parents, well that’s a personal condition and the school does not accept responsibility to fix it just because she enrolled there.</p>

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<p>to send them out into the street like that is cold, heartless, and maybe that explains a little about the issue the student was dealing with</p>

<p>I have already sent a fax to the school, saying no way in h##$ would I ever even consider sending my child to that school</p>

<p>barrons, say this was a relative of yours, sent out into the street after a suicide attempt…hey go on, shoo, ciao, figure out where you are sleeping tonight, and drag all your stuff with you</p>

<p>this is a very cold hearted school, and not seeing much compassion here either</p>

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<p>I highly doubt that the schools just lock the student out of their dorm room, expel them and then say “good luck.”</p>

<p>My guess is that after locking the student out, the dean or a mental health professional at the campus talks to the student and helps the student figure out options. I’d also imagine that students who might not want to tell their parents or other responsible adults about their suicide attempts end up doing so when the students realize that they need a place to live and someone to help them get there. I also would bet money that being locked out, etc. would encourage the student to waive the rules that prohibit colleges from contacting parents about students’ problems since the students are adults. </p>

<p>The college cannot take full responsibility for housing a seriously mentally ill student any more than they could take the responsibility for housing a student with a severe physical illness who refuses to go to the hospital to get treated.</p>

<p>As for allowing the student to go to class – why should the college do that? The student already has attempted to kill themselves. They are mentally ill an can not be trusted to go to class or to not harm themselves until they get help from a mental health therapist.</p>

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<p>SHe was allowed to retrieve her belongings with a security guard watching her…nice</p>

<p>BTW most colleges are now doing away with the expulsion policy…saying it was cruel, arbitrary and not in the best interest of the students…and should be on a case by case basis, and to not automatically lock a person out…</p>

<p>what they learned was the if a student WAS depressed or the like, students were afraid to seek help, fearing they could get kicked out</p>

<p>Guess the schools are seeing that compassion and looking at the whole student is better than throwing them out automatically</p>

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<p>I don’t know the details of this case. I don’t have a problem with a school requiring a student who they feel might have mental health issues to leave school and require counseling as a condition of return. What I do have a problem with the school sending the kid off not knowing where the student is going.
I personally know of a case where a freshman student was told on a friday afternoon that they had been placed on temporary suspension pending a hearing following a mental health problem. The student was able to get some belongings while being watched by security. No one asked the student if they had a place to go or money to pay for a hotel. I find this totally crazy sending a freshman student who had mentioned suicide off to spend a weekend alone and no one from the school even knowing where they are. I think most of these schools are thinking of themselves first and the students second.
I also think these actions discourage students from seeking help.</p>

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<p>If you read the whole article which is linked, you will see that Hunter College’s policy was changed as part of a legal settlement in this case, which occurred in 2004. Please see article below:</p>

<p>Sep 1, 2:45 PM EDT</p>

<p>Some Co-Eds Evicted for Suicide Attempts </p>

<p>By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – A depressed Hunter College student who swallowed handfuls of Tylenol, then saved her own life by calling 911, was in for a surprise when she returned to her dorm room after the ordeal. The lock had been changed on the door.</p>

<p>She was being expelled from the residence, the school informed her, because she violated her housing contract by attempting suicide. The 19-year-old was allowed to retrieve her belongings in the presence of a security guard.</p>

<p>Policies barring potentially suicidal students from campus dorms have popped up across the country in recent years as colleges have struggled to decide how to best curb an estimated 1,100 suicides a year.</p>

<p>But just as quickly, some of those rules have come under attack.
Hunter College announced last week that it was abandoning its 3-year-old suicide policy as part of a legal settlement with the student, who sued claiming her 2004 ouster from the dorms violated federal law protecting disabled people from discrimination.</p>

<p>The school, part of the City University of New York system, also agreed to pay her $65,000.</p>

<p>Hunter spokeswoman Meredith Halpern said the college may still consider temporary removal from residence halls a future option for troubled students, but such evictions will no longer be automatic.</p>

<p>Karen Bower, a senior attorney with the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, which helped litigate the case, said she hoped the settlement would prompt other schools to rethink their policies.</p>

<p>“The real danger of these policies is that they discourage students from getting the help that they really need,” Bower said.</p>

<p>Young students might be scared away from speaking out about suicidal thoughts if they believed it would mean an abrupt eviction, she said.</p>

<p>Similar lawsuits are already in the works.</p>

<p>George Washington University is being sued by a former student who was barred from campus and threatened with expulsion after checking himself in to a hospital for depression.</p>

<p>The student, Jordan Nott, said he never tried to kill himself, but had been thinking about it because of the suicide death of a close friend, also a George Washington student.</p>

<p>The Bazelon Center is also representing a student at a Connecticut boarding school who was placed on a mandatory leave after seeking treatment for depression.</p>

<p>Schools and the courts have grappled with the issue of depressed students for years.</p>

<p>The prevailing legal theory had long been that adult students were responsible for their own behavior, but that philosophy was undermined by a pair of court rulings involving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ferrum College in Virginia.</p>

<p>In both cases, judges ruled prior to out-of-court settlements that colleges might have a duty to prevent suicide if the risk was foreseeable. The cases prompted some schools to be more aggressive about sending troubled pupils home.</p>

<p>George Washington University spokeswoman Tracy Schario said the school’s treatment of Nott wasn’t an attempt to limit legal liability.</p>

<p>“The intention was to protect a life,” she said.</p>

<p>She added that Nott’s case was an unusual one. More than 200 students seek help for depression or suicidal thoughts each year at George Washington, and a majority are not asked to leave.</p>

<p>“It is always a case-by-case assessment of what is best for that particular student,” Schario said.</p>

<p>She acknowledged, however, that the university’s current practice of using its disciplinary system to handle some students with psychological problems “does appear insensitive” and said alternate procedures were being considered.</p>

<p>Joanna Locke of the Jed Foundation, a program aimed at preventing college suicides, said schools should have enough flexibility in their mandatory-leave policies to allow for individual circumstances.</p>

<p>Some schools, she said, may feel a need to send a student home if they lack the resources to offer help, or if their behavior has become disruptive.</p>

<p>“There is no right answer, except that (the decision) should be made carefully, and the decision should be made kindly,” she said.</p>

<p>Colleges may wind up in court no matter which approach they take.</p>

<p>A jury in Pennsylvania decided Thursday that Allegheny College was not liable for the 2002 suicide of a student who was allowed to stay in class for years while he battled severe depression.</p>

<p>Lawyers for the parents of Charles Mahoney, 20, said the school should have contacted his family and put him on a mandatory leave of absence.</p>

<p>The jury also cleared a college counselor and consulting psychiatrist of any liability in the death.</p>

<p>Allegheny said in a written statement after the verdict that the case was “a tragedy for all involved.”</p>

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<p>““The real danger of these policies is that they discourage students from getting the help that they really need,” Bower said.”</p>

<p>My thoughts are that if a student has made a suicide attempt, they already have missed the boat in terms of asking for help before they became a threat to their own life.</p>

<p>From what I’ve read in the current post and in one several months ago, students aren’t being kicked out of their dorm for simply saying they feel depressed or have considered suicide. They are being sent home after making an attempt or (as occurred in the GWU student) after requesting hospitalization because they were so afraid that they’d kill themselves.</p>

<p>Such people are seriously ill, and my thoughts are that they need to be under the close care of a mental health professional, and they need to be supervised by people like loving relatives who are mature and who know them well. It’s not appropriate to expect roommates, professors or residence hall assistance to take on that difficult, delicate job that could result in a fatality if mistakes are made.</p>

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<p>May be a good idea to read the schools policies - they are not that difficult to find - on how they treat/manage/handle psych issues - I have easily found several. It is all explained in black and white - tho few really take the time to read the student handbook…</p>

<p>Colleges are between a rock and a hard place on this type of issue. But the protection of human life is the ultimate goal - both the ill student and their peers as well in some cases.</p>

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<p>

and for the other half of the damned if you / damned if you don’t … read the thread on the case at MIT where they let a suicidal student stay at MIT, eventually she commited suicide, and MIT is being sued. I wonder how many people believe both Hunter and MIT were wrong? (not necessarily in all the specifics of their actions but the strategy of their approach … Hunter remove suicidal students while MIT lets them stay)</p>

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<p>Not good to have a haunted dorm or worst dorm room. This is not Harry Potter.</p>

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<p>While their methods were way too harsh, I think Hunter College was right in this matter. The MIT case immediately came to mind. Unfortunately, we live in a litigious society and I’m sure the Hunter College’s legal council insisted that the school protect itself.</p>

<p>There was [a</a> similar case](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/01/09/national/main262632.shtml]a”>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/01/09/national/main262632.shtml) involving a Stonehill College student who sued when she was told she couldn’t come back until she went through a treatement program for a servere eating disorder (she had left the campus after an ED-related heart attack). </p>

<p>She sued over ADA violations and lost.

</p>