The grisly slaughter at Virginia Tech calls for both remedial and retributive action. It necessitates the need to search for the root of VT’s failure--to figure out why the system failed to prevent or minimize the scale of the event. It calls for us to safeguard ourselves against similar campus carnages in the future.

The gun law debate is irrelevant in the context of the Virginia Tech massacre.  The gunman Cho Seung-Hui legally bought his weapons under Virginia’s laws. All of the other students could have bought guns too if they felt so inclined. For all one knows, some of those who lost their lives could also have owned guns. But, it was of no help.

It was of no help because the college campus was a gun-free zone. The pro-gun lobby supports the right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms. No law-abiding citizen would have carried a gun into a gun-free zone.

By making the campus a gun-free zone, authorities stripped students of the right to carry weapons of self-defense within campus limits. Because of this, the duty to secure the safety of citizens belonged to those governing the educational institution.

They failed in their duty to manage campus security.

The authorities were informed about the first murders that took place early on Monday morning. They had detained an acquaintance of a female victim and were in the act of questioning him when the shootings at Norris Hall took place.

There was a time gap of almost two hours between the first two murders at West Ambler-Johnston and the 30 deaths at Norris Hall in Virginia Tech.  In the two hour gap, Cho Seung-Hui gathered a 23-page manifesto, 27 videos, and photos; sent the package to NBC as a press release; and then
returned to Virginia Tech to finish his heinous agenda.

During that two hour break, authorities never thought of alerting students about the two on-campus homicides. They assumed that there was no further threat to other students. When asked about their failure to take precautionary measures, authorities answered that random acts of violence cannot be prevented. They also noted that it’s hard to warn 26,000 students at the same time.

Their explanation is unacceptable. As pointed out by concerned organizations, if a simple text messaging system had been in place, and a message had been sent from the authorities, preventive measures could have been taken. At the very least, classes could have been conducted inside closed doors. If precautionary measures were taken, many of those slaughtered students would still be attending class today.

It is now beyond a doubt that the student gunman at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui, was mentally disturbed. The authorities were aware of his mental disturbance as early as 2005 when two female students, who later desisted from pressing charges, accused Cho of sending them offensive messages and stalking them. Furthermore, the renowned poet Nikki Giovanni had Cho removed from her class because he bullied both her and her class.

Cho’s problems were so severe that the police obtained a temporary detention order to send him to a mental health facility. This was back in 2005. In 2007, after two years of declining mental health, Cho committed suicide after creating a bloodbath.

Institutions of higher education have their own policies for handling mentally ill or suicidal students. Recently, the state of Virginia felt compelled to change the law. The Act, H 3064 of Virginia, approved by the Governor on March 21, 2007, reads:

“The governing boards of each public institution of higher education shall develop and implement policies that advise students, faculty, and staff, including residence hall staff, of the proper procedures for identifying and addressing the needs of students exhibiting suicidal tendencies or behavior. The policies shall ensure that no student is penalized or expelled solely for attempting to commit suicide or seeking mental health treatment for suicidal thoughts or behaviors. Nothing in this section shall preclude any public institution of higher education from establishing policies and procedures for appropriately dealing with students who are a danger to themselves, or to others, and whose behavior is disruptive to the academic community.”

A temporary detention order of the court, like that obtained for Cho in 2005, means that under Virginia law, the magistrate found Cho to be both “mentally ill and in need of hospitalization or treatment.” It also found Cho to be “an imminent danger to himself or others, or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for himself.”

The fact that Nikki Giovanni had Cho removed from her class shows that Cho was disruptive to the academic community.

H 3064 clearly stated that it did not preclude those governing the institution from establishing policies and procedures for appropriately dealing with students who are a danger to themselves or to others, and whose behavior is disruptive to the academic community.

What had the authorities done? What policies and procedures had the authorities taken to appropriately deal with people like Cho? The language
of H3064 implies that the authorities were responsible for establishing such
policies and procedures. These authorities ignored to establish these rules, and they failed the victims of Virginia Tech.

They choose to hide behind the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). An e-mail from the office of the University Registrar to faculty members on Wednesday said, “We have just received information from the Attorney General … Please remember that FERPA rights survive death … Please be aware of confidentiality of the students involved.” While the provisions laid out in FERPA are commendable with respect to the victims, the same approach taken to withhold information of students like Cho cannot be supported.

FERPA protects the privacy rights of students. It gives students the right to file complaints against the school for disclosing educational records.

However, campus police records (which Cho had), medical records (which Cho had), and private notes of the individual staff or faculty (considering Nikki Giovanni had Cho removed from her class, these would also have been there), are not considered as educational records under FERPA. As such, release of these pertinent, yet confidential facts on Cho would not have violated FERPA.

FERPA says that, institutions do not need prior written consent to disclose non-directory information when the student’s health and safety is at issue and when complying with a judicial order or subpoena. In fact, in order to disseminate non-directory information, FERPA only requires that institutions
publish annual pamphlets on what policies and procedures they will follow in order to meet FERPA guidelines.

So, if Virginia Tech had proper policies and procedures made and published, then information on students such as Cho could have been released to the law enforcement or other appropriate bodies. The University, however, failed to establish this.

Last, but not least, the Clery Act needed to be seriously followed. Not the way it is usually done by interpreting it in favor of reducing the administrative burden. Not the way it was followed Monday morning at Virginia Tech, but by positive interpretations in favor of the students.

The Clery Act was formed to address campus violence. It requires colleges and universities to issue warnings when a crime poses a threat to students and employees. Just because it does not impose a time limit for such warnings cannot be used to find a meaning against the purpose of the act.

Authorities failed to provide students and faculty members at Virginia Tech with timely warning, and they should own up to that.