[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 64 (Friday, April 20, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4805-S4807]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         VIRGINIA TECH TRAGEDY

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have one other short comment I would 
like to make, and then I will yield the floor or note the absence of a 
quorum.
  The Governor of Virginia has asked our country to take a moment of 
silence to remember the tragedy this week at Virginia Tech at noon 
today. It is also a good time for us to think about our 
responsibilities in the U.S. Congress. There is hardly any way we can 
express our grief to these families and to that university for what 
they have been through this week. It is of such a scale that it is hard 
to imagine. We want them to know we have been thinking about them, and 
we would like to do whatever we can to help them and to help make sure 
nothing like this happens again.
  So while Virginia Tech and the Commonwealth of Virginia are reviewing 
their responsibilities in light of the tragedy this week at Virginia 
Tech, we in the Federal Government ought to be reviewing our 
responsibilities too. Our focus should be on whether Federal laws or 
regulations unwisely restrict or limit how universities are able to 
deal with students who have mental health problems or who otherwise 
exhibit behavior about which parents, authorities, or other third 
parties should know.
  Generally, and many Americans do not know this, under Federal law 
universities cannot tell parents about

[[Page S4806]]

their child's problems or their grades without their student's consent. 
At least one professor at Virginia Tech who was tutoring the shooter 
has been quoted as saying that she felt that Federal laws prevented her 
from going to his parents or to others about her concerns. Therefore, I 
am sending a letter today to Senator Kennedy and to Senator Enzi, the 
chairman and the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and 
Pensions Committee on which I serve. I am writing them to request that 
our committee ask the Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, to 
conduct a review of Federal laws, regulations, and relevant State laws 
that limit the ability of universities to tell parents or other third 
parties about a student's problem without the student's consent.
  I would hope that Secretary Spellings could review not only the laws 
and the rules, but also the implementation of these rules on campus. I 
am a former president of a university. I understand it may very well be 
that faculty members, and perhaps even some administrators, are unaware 
of the rules, or at least uncertain about how to apply them.
  My hope would be that Secretary Spellings could complete her review 
within 120 days, and after that our committee might hold a hearing or 
roundtable to determine whether there is action we need to take.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this point a 
copy of my letters to Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi and an article 
from the New York Times dated April 19 entitled, ``Laws Limit Options 
When a Student Is Mentally Ill,'' which describes very well the 
situation in which many university faculty members find themselves.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

     Hon. Edward M. Kennedy,
     Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and 
         Pensions, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Michael B. Enzi,
     Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor 
         and Pensions, Washington, DC.
       Dear Ted and Mike, While Virginia Tech and the Commonwealth 
     of Virginia are reviewing their responsibilities in light of 
     the tragedy this week on the Virginia Tech campus, we in the 
     federal government should be reviewing our responsibilities, 
     too.
       Our focus should be on whether federal laws or regulations 
     unwisely restrict or limit how universities are able to deal 
     with students who have mental health problems or who 
     otherwise exhibit behavior about which parents, authorities 
     or other third parties should know. Generally, under federal 
     law, universities cannot tell parents about their children's 
     problems without the student's consent. At least one 
     professor at Virginia Tech who was tutoring the shooter has 
     been quoted as saying she felt that federal laws prevented 
     her from going to his parents or to others about her 
     concerns.
       Therefore, I am writing to request that our Committee on 
     Health, Education, Labor and Pensions ask Secretary of 
     Education Margaret Spellings to conduct a review of federal 
     laws, regulations and relevant state laws that limit the 
     ability of universities to tell parents or other third 
     parties about a student's problems without the student's 
     consent. I would hope that Secretary Spellings could review 
     not only the laws and rules but also the implementation of 
     these rules on campus.
       As a former university president, I understand that it very 
     may be that faculty members are unaware of the rules or 
     uncertain about how to apply them. My hope would be that the 
     Secretary could complete her review within 120 days and, 
     after that, our committee might hold a hearing or roundtable 
     to determine whether there is action we need to take.
       Thank you very much.
           Sincerely,
     Lamar Alexander.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Apr. 19, 2007]

           Laws Limit Options When a Student Is Mentally ILL

                            (By Tamar Lewin)

       Federal privacy and antidiscrimination laws restrict how 
     universities can deal with students who have mental health 
     problems.
       For the most part, universities cannot tell parents about 
     their children's problems without the student's consent. They 
     cannot release any information in a student's medical record 
     without consent. And they cannot put students on involuntary 
     medical leave, just because they develop a serious mental 
     illness. Nor is knowing when to worry about student behavior, 
     and what action to take, always so clear.
       ``They can't really kick someone out because they're 
     writing papers about weird topics, even if they seem 
     withdrawn and hostile,'' said Dr. Richard Kadison, chief of 
     mental health services at Harvard University. ``Most state 
     laws are pretty clear: you can only bring students to 
     hospitals if there is imminent risk to themselves or someone 
     else, so universities are in a bit of a bind that way.'' But, 
     he said, some schools do mandate limited amounts of treatment 
     in certain circumstances.
       ``At the University of Missouri, if someone makes a suicide 
     attempt, they mandate four counseling sessions, for 
     example,'' said Dr. Kadison, an author of ``College of the 
     Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What To Do 
     About It.''
       Universities can find themselves in a double bind. On the 
     one hand, they may be liable if they fail to prevent a 
     suicide or murder. After the death in 2000 of Elizabeth H. 
     Shin, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
     who had written several suicide notes and used the university 
     counseling service before setting herself on fire, the 
     Massachusetts Superior Court allowed her parents, who had not 
     been told of her deterioration, to sue administrators for 
     $27.7 million. The case was settled for an undisclosed 
     amount.
       On the other hand, universities may be held liable if they 
     do take action to remove a potentially suicidal student. In 
     August, the City University of New York agreed to pay $65,000 
     to a student who sued after being barred from her dormitory 
     room at Hunter College because she was hospitalized after a 
     suicide attempt.
       Also last year, George Washington University reached a 
     confidential settlement in a case charging that it had 
     violated antidiscrimination laws by suspending Jordan Nott, a 
     student who had sought hospitalization for depression.
       ``This is a very, very difficult and gray area, when you 
     take action to remove the student from the campus 
     environment, versus when you encourage the student to use the 
     resources available on campus,'' said Ada Meloy, director of 
     legal and regulatory affairs at the American Council on 
     Education. ``In an emergency, you can share certain 
     information, but it's not clear what's an emergency.''
       Ms. Meloy estimated that situations complicated enough to 
     involve a university's lawyers arise, on average, about twice 
     a semester at large universities.
       While shootings like the one at Virginia Tech are extremely 
     rare, suicides, threats and serious mental-health problems 
     are not. Last year, the American College Health Association's 
     National College Health Assessment, covering nearly 95,000 
     students at 117 campuses, found that 9 percent of students 
     had seriously considered suicide in the previous year, and 1 
     in 100 had attempted it.
       So mental health experts emphasize that, whatever a 
     college's concerns about liability, the goal of campus 
     policies should be to maximize the likelihood that those who 
     need mental-health treatment will get it.
       ``What we really need to do is encourage students to seek 
     mental health treatment if they need it, to remove any 
     barriers to their getting help, destigmatize it, and make it 
     safe, so they know there won't be negative consequences,'' 
     said Karen Bower, a lawyer at the Bazelon Center for Mental 
     Health Law in Washington, who represented Mr. Nott.
       With the Virginia Tech killings, many universities are 
     planning to remind faculty members of their protocols. 
     ``We're actually going to go ahead and have the counseling 
     service here do a session for all our instructors and faculty 
     on what to look for, what the procedures are, and what the 
     counseling center can do,'' said Shannon Miller, chairwoman 
     of the English department at Temple University.
       At Harvard, Dr. Kadison said, dormitory resident assistants 
     watch for signs of trouble, and are usually the first to 
     become aware of worrisome behavior--and to call a dean.
       ``The dean might insist that they get an evaluation to make 
     sure they're healthy enough to live in a dorm,'' he said. 
     ``If it's not thought that they're in any immediate danger, 
     they can take or not take the recommendation.''
       Last month, Virginia passed a law, the first in the nation, 
     prohibiting public colleges and universities from expelling 
     or punishing students solely for attempting suicide or 
     seeking mental-health treatment for suicidal thoughts.
       ``In one sense, the new law doesn't cover new territory, 
     because discrimination against people with mental health 
     problems is already prohibited,'' said Dana L. Fleming, a 
     lawyer in Manchester, N.H., who is an expert on education 
     law. ``But in another sense, it's groundbreaking since it's 
     the first time we've seen states focus on student suicides 
     and come up with some code of conduct for schools.''
       College counseling services nationwide are seeing more use. 
     ``We're seeing more students in our service consistently 
     every year,'' said Alejandro Martinez, director for 
     counseling and psychological services at Stanford University, 
     which sees about 10 percent of the student body each year. 
     ``Certainly more students are experiencing mental illness, 
     including depression. But there's also been a cultural 
     shift,'' Mr. Martinez said, ``in that more students are 
     willing to get help.''
       College officials say that a growing number of students 
     arrive on campus with a history of mental-health problems and 
     a prescription for psychotropic drugs. But screening for such 
     problems would be illegal, admissions officers say.

[[Page S4807]]

       ``We're restricted by the disabilities act from asking,'' 
     said Rick Shaw, Stanford's admissions director. ``We do ask a 
     question, as most institutions do, about whether a student 
     has been suspended or expelled from school, and if they have 
     been, we ask them to write an explanation of it.''
       Federal laws also restrict what universities can reveal. 
     Generally, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 
     FERPA, passed in 1974, makes it illegal to disclose a 
     student's records to family members without the student's 
     authorization.
       ``Colleges can disclose a student's private records if they 
     believe there's a health and safety emergency, but that 
     health and safety exception hasn't been much tested in the 
     courts, so it's left to be figured out case by case,'' Ms. 
     Fleming said.
       And the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act 
     prohibits the release of medical records. ``The interaction 
     of all these laws does not make things easy,'' she said.

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, on Monday America was devastated by the 
deadliest shooting rampage in our Nation's history. A gunman using two 
semi-automatic handguns, shot and killed 32 students and teachers and 
injured several dozen others before turning one of his guns on himself. 
Witnesses described scenes of chaos and grief, with students jumping 
from second-story windows to escape gunfire, while others heroically 
blocked their classroom doors to shield them from the gunman.
  Many of us watched this tragedy unfold on the news, finding it 
difficult to grasp the true magnitude of it. Parents and grandparents 
across America were thinking about the horror of one's child being 
caught in the middle of such chaos. There is little that could be worse 
for a parent than sending a child off to college, only to lose them to 
a senseless act of gun violence.
  I express condolences to the family, friends, and community touched 
by the tragedy at Virginia Tech. I know I reflect the feelings of the 
people of Michigan when I say that our thoughts and prayers are with 
them in this hour of pain and grief.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, today I express my sympathy and I know 
the sympathy of all of the Members of the Senate and the people of the 
United States of America on the tragic losses this week at Virginia 
Tech.
  None of us can understand what happened in Blacksburg, VA, but all of 
us recognize the profound tragedy and the loss of youth in its prime.
  I learned this week that one of those losses was a Georgian by the 
name of Christopher James ``Jamie'' Bishop, and I, from the floor of 
the Senate, send to Pine Mountain, GA, my sympathy on the tragic loss 
of Jamie.
  Jamie, who was passionate about his art and an avid amateur 
photographer, grew up in Pine Mountain, GA, and was valedictorian of 
Harris County High School. He received his bachelor's degree in German 
from my alma mater, the University of Georgia, and was a Fulbright 
scholar at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany. He returned 
to the University of Georgia to earn his master's degree in German 
linguistics.
  Jamie, who was known for wearing his hair in a ponytail, had been a 
German instructor at Virginia Tech since 2005. His wife, Stefanie 
Hofer, is an assistant professor of German there. By all accounts, 
Jamie was an intelligent, clever and passionate individual.
  I am very proud as a Georgian to have known of his accomplishments, 
and I send his wife Stefanie and his parents Michael and Jeri my 
prayers and my hopes that they will accept our sympathy as they endure 
the heartbreak of the loss of Jamie.
  To the families of all of those professors, employees, and students 
who lost their lives or were hurt in Blacksburg, VA, I extend my 
sympathy and my deepest prayers that we will find reconciliations out 
of tragedy.

                          ____________________