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stephen

> What can we do to not get sued?

I don't understand why this is a bad thing.

Lawsuits are society's way of telling organizations, "don't let this happen again".

So, let's assume, yes, this college is worried about a lawsuit from the girl hurting others.

You assert, "those jerks, they're only focused on avoiding a lawsuit and covering their ass."

Well, yes, because society has told them "if you let this girl/other students get hurt because you ignored an obvious threat to their safety, their parents will sue the hell out of you".

So, in reality, the threat of a lawsuit is, by proxy, actually protecting the other students. How is that a bad thing?

(Frankly, I would give Yale the benefit of the doubt, and assume they were directly concerned for the safety of this and other students, instead of only concerned about the lawsuit, but, either way, the results are the same: no one got hurt, she got help she needed, and she's back.)

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I'm having a hard time seeing how Yale's decision would protect other students -- on the contrary, the message that would send to other students is, "you better not do something to deviate from the norm in an undesirable way or you won't be wanted here."

Certainly in this case the girl wasn't a direct threat to anyone else, the only threat I see here from the University's perspective is to their image as an institution that admits "cutters".

> the message [...] you won't be wanted here

You're taking a very specific, dangerous situation (an active psychiatric illness) and making a large extrapolation to "any deviation from the norm".

People will active psychiatric illnesses are supposed to go to psych wards for immediate medication, and then are supposed to have months of follow up while they heal, adjust to meds, and learn to cope.

This official had an extremely bad choice of words, but what everyone is missing is that the right thing happened. She's healing. She's back. She's not dead.

Yes, she harbors a lot of resentment about what happened, but a lot of times people in these situations don't realize what really is for their own good. Unfortunately. Hopefully she can come to realize this eventually.

> wasn't a direct threat to anyone else

Have you read the other comments in this thread about suicidal (only self-harm) people, once in the hospital, slashing staff with a razor blade?

I assert people with psychiatric illnesses are not as predictable as you seem to think. Especially when they're going to be going through a med change, which is often a crap shoot about which meds help and which can actually make it worse.

Do you have training/experience to the contrary? I am admittedly not an expert on "cutters". Maybe we need a "IANAP" (I Am Not A Psychiatrist) disclaimer.

What psychiatric illness was she diagnosed with that would make her a threat to others? I couldn't find anything beyond self-harm, and not to make light of it, but a survey seems to suggest that incidents of adolescents and adults self-harming and having suicidal thoughts is actually pretty high [1], and I doubt a high percentage of these people posed a danger to others. This case is probably more serious than the majority in the survey, but then where exactly do you draw the line in assuming she's a threat to others?

Also, the one comment you're referring to referenced an OD patient being physically restrained by medical staff -- are you going to tell me this is sufficient anecdotal evidence to make her a threat to other students?

[1] http://www.nursingtimes.net/survey-finds-worrying-number-of-...

People with mental illness are far more likely to be the. I tim of violence than the perpetrator of violence.

In this very case she didn't harm any other person but was assaulted herself!

So a few high profile lawsuits from rare events have skewed the perception of mental illness, and now someone with zero intent to harm other people is treated as being a risk to other people? To me that feels like a sub optimal but obvious happening.

It feels like stigma is increased, not decreased.

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