4 ms·

How is this even legal? I can't even imagine this happening in Europe; you can't dismiss someone from school without legal basis. Is it different in America?

by kosma 11y ago

k-mcgrady 11y ago
Isn't this how employment there works too?
- lawl 11y ago
  Apart from there not beeing a single law for Europe... In theory yes, in practice it's easy to make something up, here it's mostly "company internal reasons", which they don't have to justify. The formal reason will never be that someone sucked at their job.
  - celticninja 11y ago
    well that is somewhat inaccurate, there are EU wide laws and regulations.
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      Iirc, EU issue directives. But it is up the individual member nations to turn those into national laws and regulations.
pjc50 11y ago
There have been a couple of cases of whistleblowers being fired on bogus mental health grounds from the EU itself. Although I can't remember names at the moment.
mox1 11y ago
Are you saying that in Europe colleges cannot dismiss anyone without a "legal basis" (ie they have committed a crime?) If so that is crazy..Cheating on a test is not "illegal." There are a whole host of things that are "against school policy" but not illegal. I find this very hard to believe....
- praptak 11y ago
  "Against school policy" is legal basis. "We suddenly decided we don't want the likes of you" is not. I'm not saying this case must have been the latter.
  - eli 11y ago
    I'm sure the school has a policy against students who are at threat of harming themselves or others.
- pluma 11y ago
  School policy still has to follow the actual laws. Dismissing people for irrelevant mental issues can not legally be school policy (in the EU) as it's blatant discrimination. It's a blatant breach of privacy and medical confidentiality. Comparing it to "cheating" is actually fairly despicable. We're not talking about malicious or manipulative behaviour, we're talking about someone suffering from an illness who took action to find treatment.
  - defective 11y ago
    I think you can go ahead and relax. mox1 was making an argument about whether colleges could not dismiss anyone without a legal basis. mox1 was certainly not equating cheating with mental illness.
madamepsychosis 11y ago
I live in Europe and something similar happened to one of my friends. Abuses of power are everywhere.
Thriptic 11y ago
Assuming that his contact was only with a mental health professional, his dismissal strikes me as illegal and unethical. It is absolutely illegal in the United States for a physician to release medical records to anyone without the patient's consent, and mental health records are generally treated as especially sacred. If that is indeed what happened, the college would be exposing themselves to a lot of risk. I would highly encourage anyone feeling depressed to seek counseling, and for the most part school mental health services are a safe and welcoming place to find help. With that being said, DO NOT share information about your mental health status with non-medical staff at school, as they are not bound by the same rules as physicians and can act on that information. My (unsubstantiated and hopeful) guess is that this is likely what actually led to this student's dismissal.
- selimthegrim 11y ago
  Unfortunately, HIPAA and FERPA overlap and cancel out in some weird ways when it's the university running the counseling service.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- cjbprime 11y ago
  selimthegrin is correct below -- HIPAA does not apply to on-campus mental health services, and there are many ways for therapy records to be shared with the campus administration via FERPA, even against the consent of the therapist. It's a terrible loophole that needs to be closed. In the meantime, it seems we can't in good conscience encourage people to use their on-campus counselors for mental health crises. (And the off-campus counselors are going to be more expensive, such that people you warn off the on-campus ones might just get no help at all.) :/ Here's an example of a college administration obtaining therapist records to use in their legal defense, under FERPA after the student sued them: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/03/09/391876192/college-rape-case-shows-a-key-limit-to-medical-privacy-law http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/03/09/391876192/college...
hammock 11y ago
It's called involuntary withdrawal and this is not the first time it's happened in a US college http://www.splc.org/blog/splc/2013/04/transparency-tuesday-colleges-if-youre-suicidal-youre-expelled-policies-deserve-greater-scrutiny http://www.splc.org/blog/splc/2013/04/transparency-tuesday-c...
kw71 11y ago
I'm not surprised if it's legal. W&M staff have a lot of control over the legal system in Virginia - they practically set Supreme Court policy, which controls lower courts too; they control the Virginia State Bar; they have a lot of influence on the state legislature which set the laws of the state. Virginia is no hero for mentally ill people. Some people are homeless and without income because of mental illness, and until this year, the only "medicaid" available for those people (who did not care for children) were sterilization services (see "Plan First" at VA DMAS.) This means that the eugenics program against mentally ill people that Virginia is known for is still ongoing - it's merely only optional now. Virginia has closed the majority of their state mental institutions and leave these cases to be dealt with by the criminal justice system: basically the theory is to let them devolve into criminal activity then send them to prison. I think that some mental illness is the result of child abuse. Although child abuse and neglect have been statutorily defined as criminal acts, they are not meaningfully prosecuted in practice. Since the mid-1970's, it has been the law that a wide classification of government employees, from school employees to police officers, are bound by law to report any suspicions of child abuse, but in practice none of them do that, and until several years ago, these employees were liable to no criminal penalties for ignoring that law. I have tried to find cases of people prosecuted for violating this, and have found none. I think that WMU's influence over the state government is ridiculous and the results of it are disgusting. The school does not deserve its stellar reputation. I would not feel the least bit of sorrow if it were dissolved.

How is this even legal? I can't even imagine this happening in Europe; you can't dismiss someone from school without legal basis. Is it different in America?

by kosma 11y ago

How is this even legal? I can't even imagine this happening in Europe; you can't dismiss someone from school without legal basis. Is it different in America?

k-mcgrady 11y ago

Isn't this how employment there works too?

lawl 11y ago
Apart from there not beeing a single law for Europe... In theory yes, in practice it's easy to make something up, here it's mostly "company internal reasons", which they don't have to justify. The formal reason will never be that someone sucked at their job.
- celticninja 11y ago
  well that is somewhat inaccurate, there are EU wide laws and regulations.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Iirc, EU issue directives. But it is up the individual member nations to turn those into national laws and regulations.

pjc50 11y ago

There have been a couple of cases of whistleblowers being fired on bogus mental health grounds from the EU itself. Although I can't remember names at the moment.

mox1 11y ago

Are you saying that in Europe colleges cannot dismiss anyone without a "legal basis" (ie they have committed a crime?) If so that is crazy..Cheating on a test is not "illegal." There are a whole host of things that are "against school policy" but not illegal. I find this very hard to believe....

praptak 11y ago
"Against school policy" is legal basis. "We suddenly decided we don't want the likes of you" is not. I'm not saying this case must have been the latter.
- eli 11y ago
  I'm sure the school has a policy against students who are at threat of harming themselves or others.
pluma 11y ago
School policy still has to follow the actual laws. Dismissing people for irrelevant mental issues can not legally be school policy (in the EU) as it's blatant discrimination. It's a blatant breach of privacy and medical confidentiality. Comparing it to "cheating" is actually fairly despicable. We're not talking about malicious or manipulative behaviour, we're talking about someone suffering from an illness who took action to find treatment.
- defective 11y ago
  I think you can go ahead and relax. mox1 was making an argument about whether colleges could not dismiss anyone without a legal basis. mox1 was certainly not equating cheating with mental illness.

madamepsychosis 11y ago

I live in Europe and something similar happened to one of my friends. Abuses of power are everywhere.

Thriptic 11y ago

Assuming that his contact was only with a mental health professional, his dismissal strikes me as illegal and unethical. It is absolutely illegal in the United States for a physician to release medical records to anyone without the patient's consent, and mental health records are generally treated as especially sacred. If that is indeed what happened, the college would be exposing themselves to a lot of risk. I would highly encourage anyone feeling depressed to seek counseling, and for the most part school mental health services are a safe and welcoming place to find help. With that being said, DO NOT share information about your mental health status with non-medical staff at school, as they are not bound by the same rules as physicians and can act on that information. My (unsubstantiated and hopeful) guess is that this is likely what actually led to this student's dismissal.

selimthegrim 11y ago
Unfortunately, HIPAA and FERPA overlap and cancel out in some weird ways when it's the university running the counseling service.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
cjbprime 11y ago
selimthegrin is correct below -- HIPAA does not apply to on-campus mental health services, and there are many ways for therapy records to be shared with the campus administration via FERPA, even against the consent of the therapist. It's a terrible loophole that needs to be closed. In the meantime, it seems we can't in good conscience encourage people to use their on-campus counselors for mental health crises. (And the off-campus counselors are going to be more expensive, such that people you warn off the on-campus ones might just get no help at all.) :/ Here's an example of a college administration obtaining therapist records to use in their legal defense, under FERPA after the student sued them: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/03/09/391876192/college-rape-case-shows-a-key-limit-to-medical-privacy-law http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/03/09/391876192/college...

hammock 11y ago

It's called involuntary withdrawal and this is not the first time it's happened in a US college http://www.splc.org/blog/splc/2013/04/transparency-tuesday-colleges-if-youre-suicidal-youre-expelled-policies-deserve-greater-scrutiny http://www.splc.org/blog/splc/2013/04/transparency-tuesday-c...

kw71 11y ago

I'm not surprised if it's legal. W&M staff have a lot of control over the legal system in Virginia - they practically set Supreme Court policy, which controls lower courts too; they control the Virginia State Bar; they have a lot of influence on the state legislature which set the laws of the state. Virginia is no hero for mentally ill people. Some people are homeless and without income because of mental illness, and until this year, the only "medicaid" available for those people (who did not care for children) were sterilization services (see "Plan First" at VA DMAS.) This means that the eugenics program against mentally ill people that Virginia is known for is still ongoing - it's merely only optional now. Virginia has closed the majority of their state mental institutions and leave these cases to be dealt with by the criminal justice system: basically the theory is to let them devolve into criminal activity then send them to prison. I think that some mental illness is the result of child abuse. Although child abuse and neglect have been statutorily defined as criminal acts, they are not meaningfully prosecuted in practice. Since the mid-1970's, it has been the law that a wide classification of government employees, from school employees to police officers, are bound by law to report any suspicions of child abuse, but in practice none of them do that, and until several years ago, these employees were liable to no criminal penalties for ignoring that law. I have tried to find cases of people prosecuted for violating this, and have found none. I think that WMU's influence over the state government is ridiculous and the results of it are disgusting. The school does not deserve its stellar reputation. I would not feel the least bit of sorrow if it were dissolved.