UCLA has a duty to protect students from violence

Parent Cafe
1

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ucla-stabbing-court-20180321-story.html

This woman was stabbed in a lab by another student. He was charged with murder but found to be insane. The university had notice of his psychiatric issues to the extent that he was removed from the dorms.

2

"UCLA officials knew Damon Thompson, Rosen’s assailant, suffered from paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations, had been barred from campus housing and had told a teaching assistant that he believed Rosen was demeaning him, according to court records.

Thompson, who was from Belize, entered UCLA in the fall of 2008 as a transfer student and exhibited worrisome behavior from almost the beginning, according to court records.

Thompson emailed multiple professors and complained to teaching assistants that other students, including Rosen, were maligning him, though there was no evidence of such conduct.

In one email to a professor, Thompson said that if something were not done about his persecutors, he would have to act “in a manner that will incur undesirable consequences.”"

WHY was this guy permitted to be on campus again?

Barred from campus housing but it was fine to have him in the classroom?

3

IIRC, a TA at UCLA was killed by a mentally disturbed graduate student in the last few years. I’ll look it up.

But universities need to protect or warn students about other students that are dangerous. I don’t understand why a threatening email wasn’t enough for expulsion of this student.

I would hope the ruling would apply to high schools also so that in California a student like Nicolas Cruz would have been barred from any high school campus after all the police reports, assaults and other incidents that red flagged him as a potential killer.

4

That was a couple years ago and triggered a campus lockdown (my D got to experience it firsthand). I believe it was actually a former grad student, not a current student.

5

Yes, the situation was different. He drove from Minnesota to LA to kill his former professor. He had delusions that the professor had stolen his work.

But back to the court ruling, I hope the threat of liability makes colleges and universities more vigilant about scrutinizing and dealing with psychotic, dangerous students who are endanger other students.