The recent Arizona school shootings have given us something to think long and hard about: when it comes to mental illnesses on campus, where do we draw the line between caution and discrimination?
When Jared L. Loughner attended community college in Arizona, officials worried about the threat he posed to his fellow students – and rightly so. The 22-year-old was prone to frightening mood swings and believed firmly in conspiracy theories that could not be understood by anyone else.
The school recognized his strange behavior, but legally there was little that could be done. The truth is, there’s really no protocol when it comes to addressing mental illness on campus, no organized method for detecting and dealing with the dangers of having a mentally ill student on campus.
Although Loughner’s psychological issues were evident, the school could not legally force him into therapy. He was suspended from the institution, a suspension that was not lifted upon his refusal to undergo mental treatment. But a question is raised here: if a school has no choice but to let a student go in order to protect the community, does that school after a responsibility to that student even after his or her departure? Is there someone they should notify when a disturbed student refuses treatment for obvious issues? Even if they had notified local authorities, what could the authorities have done? Tailed him 24/7?
Tragically, Loughner’s case was far from over when he left school. Though he was not a student at the time of his paranoia-fueled shooting, he killed several students in his attempt to harm Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
Evidence suggests that the mentally ill are actually no more likely to commit violent crimes, but that mental issues – if left untreated – can manifest themselves in dangerous ways. Experts guess that a psychological evaluation could have possibly prevented the situation. They claim that cases like this are almost always premeditated and planned out meticulously, and a psychiatric professional could have picked up on these plans. Loughlin most likely suffers from schizophrenia.
There isn’t much that school officials could have done in this case, but with the recent surge in school shootings, I have to wonder if some sort of legal protocol should be established for mentally ill students. A small setting like a community college makes it easier for students and faculty to identify those who seem to need some help, but at larger universities, these issues are often concealed. A basic psychiatric evaluation for all students may be a good idea. But is it fair to the mentally healthy students? And is it fair to label students with diagnoses that could possibly follow them for the rest of their lives?
Should there be a national database of people like Jared Loughner, mentally ill students who do not appear to be seeking treatment, that can be accessed by certain authorities so people can better track when a student is going off the deep end?* If only there had been, Loughner, rejected from the Army and his college, could have possibly been flagged and prevented from buying a gun.
And at the end of the day, we’re still left with the issue of whether or not colleges should be allowed to mandate that unstable students seek treatment. What are your views? Sound off below.
