Education Law, Co-Sponsored by Law and Mental Disability and Student Services

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Section on Education Law, Co-Sponsored by Law and Mental Disability and Student Services
San Diego Salon B, North Tower/Lobby Level, San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina

Campus Violence: Prevention, Response and Liability
(Program to be published in Journal of College and University Law)

One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers.

Over the past several years news headlines seem dominated by incidents of violence on college and university campuses. Shootings at the Appalachian School of Law, Virginia Tech, and Northern Illinois University raised public awareness of campus violence and elevated concerns about prevention, response and liability to the top of university and college administrators' agendas. While the grief and emotional toll of these tragedies on entire communities is recognized, the legal issues surrounding campus violence are not fully identified let alone understood. Because perpetrators of campus violence are often afflicted with mental disabilities, uncertainties in mental health law, student privacy rights under federal and state law, involuntary commitment processes, and permissible interventions for students known to pose a danger inhibit proactive measures by administrators to prevent campus violence. Further unknowns regarding gun rights on campus and legal obligations respecting bullying and peer harassment exacerbate the prevention problem. Administrators and law enforcement agencies are also unsure what constitutes an appropriate response to violence once it begins and what measures must be instituted to reduce casualties and injuries. The duties to warn students or take appropriate disciplinary and safety measures are opaque, leaving administrators to balance the rights of individual students against the safety of the student body with little guidance. These issues impact colleges, universities, mental health providers, law enforcement officials, victims, victims’ families, law makers and other public officials.  Panelists will examine the complex and often conflicting legal duties with respect to prevention and response that leave college and university administrators uncertain about how to avert future violence and fearful of liability when faced with a student that may pose a risk of threat.

Business Meeting at Program Conclusion.