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Addressing the Virginia Tech Massacre

Tuesday, May 1 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Junius W. Peake, Greeley

Everyone wants to seek ways to prevent the horrific massacre at Virginia Tech from being repeated.

Educational institutions are caught on the horns of a well-known litigation dilemma. If they expel or otherwise remove a student because of a concern the student will become (or is) a danger to him/herself or others, the student will most probably sue the institution for a violation of civil rights, and the monetary damage penalty could be enormous.

On the other hand, if the student is permitted to remain, and then commits injury or death to other students, faculty and/or other persons at the institution, the institution may be successfully held financially liable for immense monetary damages for failing to remove the student in a timely manner.

Both the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres provide stark evidence of what can happen when an institution chooses the latter path, not to mention the human lives that are ended or damaged, plus the adverse publicity that the institution will receive.

In either case, most educational institutions—public and private alike—are seldom willing to spend the large sums required to defend such a lawsuit, not to mention any awards that may be made against them.

Here’s an idea I would like to suggest: Enact laws that will immunize educational administrators from legal liability if they suspend or conditionally expel a student or employee, and arrange to place that person in a secure location under special conditions, if that person is determined by a small committee of administrators in writing to be a potential serious threat to the institution or any of its personnel or students.

The terms and conditions under which such immunization would be available must of course be carefully drafted, and provide for oversight by the judiciary. The initial period of restraint would be for a short period, subject to renewal or permanence if approved by a court of proper jurisdiction. Each state would be free to draft its own version of the law, just as every state has its own version of the “Good Samaritan” law. However, these immunizations would not be required to comply with conflicting laws of the state or the federal government.

However state statutes may be ruled invalid because of federal laws, or because they are judged to be unconstitutional under state or federal constitutions. As a result, every effort must be made to draft legislation that will not be invalidated for these reasons.

One approach would be to have a federal law drafted to provide this legal tort protection nationwide, thus limiting opposition solely to interpretation of the federal constitution.

Good Samaritan laws immunize rescuers who have helped victims from tort liability when providing emergency medical care at the scene of a severe accident or medical crisis. The citations for each state’s laws are shown at the URL of footnote.

More than half the states also have “Abandoned Baby” laws that provide for a newborn baby to be delivered to designated places—fire stations and hospitals, for example—without creating criminal or financial liability for the person who does so. General information about these laws is shown at the URL of footnote. These laws also may be subject to litigation.

Obviously, to implement this idea, which I have tentatively dubbed for discussion as “The Common Sense Educational Protection Act,” a great deal of care must be taken in its drafting. I have not gone into any of the myriad of details that must be addressed. However, if this idea is deemed worth being considered further, I would be glad to try my hand at listing some of the issues needing to be addressed and resolved, and work with any private or governmental group willing to examine them further.

I have learned over the years that the hoary saying that: “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” would be magnified by the millions when a massacre at an educational institution occurs.

Junius W. Peake is Monfort Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Finance, University of Northern Colorado

READER COMMENTS

Yep, more laws and a committee to judge people. Should be as fast and as effective as the Ward Churchill case. By the time anything was done using your idea....the students would all be shot and dead before the committee made a decision on the matter. Hey, let's get a group together and study the problem some more! No commitees, a college should have the right to ban anyone from their campus. Education is not a right!! You have to earn it.

Posted by Voter on May 3, 2007 10:50 AM