State legislation has been drafted in response to a proposed University policy that could force suicidal students out of school if they continually refuse help. It is unclear whether the legislation will actually impact the University.
Oregon Senator Bill Morrisette requested the legislation, drafted by retired pharmacist Jim Whittenburg on Thursday. Morrisette called it a “student protection bill to make sure a student isn’t put on mandatory leave without due process.”
“We’re protecting both the University and students by making sure they don’t make any off-the-wall diagnoses,” Morrisette said.
But drafting the final language has been difficult because the University has not released a copy of the proposed policy to the senator’s office, he said. The Emerald has also been unable to obtain a draft of the proposed policy.
University General Counsel Melinda Grier said Monday she has not had time to review the draft of the policy, which she has had since November 2004. She hopes to release a copy of the policy sometime in the next few weeks, she said.
The University proposed changes to the mandatory leave policy in fall 2004 in response to increased rates of suicidal students, University Counseling and Testing Center Director Robin Holmes said in a November interview. She said the proposed policy would shift the decision to use mandatory leave from health center personnel to the Division of Student Affairs with the director of the health center or counseling center making a medical recommendation.
Morrisette said the goal of the bill is to give students safeguards against mandatory leave.
The proposal is modeled after a bill introduced by Morrisette and passed in 2003 that forbids public school teachers and officials from recommending that students take mind-altering drugs, such as antidepressants, in response to behavior problems. The proposed bill would, among other things, extend the rule to Oregon colleges and universities.
However, Health Center Director Tom Ryan, who helped create the new policy, said mandatory leave wouldn’t hinge on whether high-risk suicidal students would take prescription drugs; rather, it would depend on whether they were still suicidal and unwilling to accept help after the proposed four mandatory meetings with a University psychologist or psychiatrist. Students are considered high-risk if they have reported they’re suicidal, have the means to commit suicide, have a family history of suicide or have tried to commit suicide before.
Ryan said students occasionally need help and are unwilling to accept it, estimating the University sees fewer than one case each year. He said he feels the bill’s concerns are legitimate but are ones the University has already addressed.
“What we’re trying to do is find our way toward something that will allow us to prompt that student to accept help,” Ryan said. “It would not be the option we would immediately leap to.”
The bill also states the decision of whether to let a student stay at school should be based solely on judgments made by a psychologist or psychiatrist. In addition, the bill mandates students be “treated in the strictest privacy.”
Ryan said while the administration would make the final decision on whether to remove a student from school, his or Holmes’ recommendation would heavily influence that decision. Also, he said a student’s privacy is already protected by industry ethics and federal law.
Whittenburg said he proposed the bill out of concern University officials might err on the side of “too much judgment on people’s lives rather than too little.”
Vice President for Student Affairs Anne Leavitt said in November that students who show suicidal behaviors but refuse help place the entire campus community in distress.
“A student who is threatening suicide every night actually is creating a crisis in the community around them,” she said. “It holds the community hostage.”
Holmes said the updated policy will better protect the entire University population, which outweighs concern for a student who is suicidal, disruptive and refusing services.
“We need to tell those students you can’t stay here, be in school and do that,” she said. “It’s not good for anybody else and it’s not a solution.”
However, Whittenburg said he felt placing the campus community over the student “was not a very human way to look at things.”
Morrisette said he will wait to introduce the bill until he has received more input from the Oregon Student Association and has had a chance to review a draft of the University’s proposed policy. Morrisette must introduce the bill by the end of February, he said.
“I’m going to wait,” Morrisette said. “I’m not going to introduce a bill based on something that isn’t a problem and have a big war in my hands.”
ASUO President and Oregon Student Association Chairman Adam Petkun said he has mixed feelings about mandating leave for suicidal students, but was “not sure state action is needed.”

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News editor Jared Paben
contributed to this report