Point taken, anon. I think you're talking more about paranoid schizophrenia whereas I'm talking more about mental illness in general. You are correct that untreated paranoid schizophrenics have a disproportionally percent of certain crimes, but if you focus on how many schizophrenics are dangerous, the situation is a little different (it's a little like my stat prof's favorite example: Most heroin users have used marijuana, making people think marijuana is a gateway drug. But the vast majority of marijuana users don't go on to heroin, so the "gateway" idea isn't as well supported as people think). However, I would differ in that I think laypeople are fairly anxious about schizophrenics rather than complacent. I'm in a relatively rural part of Virginia and thus my "laypeople" could be very different from yours.

As far as fighting a mental illness, I think most mental illnesses...depression, OCD, phobias, and so on...feature insight at least some of the time. The depressed person knows she's depressed and may well fight it. If we are specifically referring to schizophrenia, then the insight is much less likely. A person in a psychotic state either doesn't know he/she's ill or in some cases can't tell what's illness and what's reality. In that case, the fighting analogy doesn't work as well.

In this case, apparently at least one professor DID want him assessed by a psychiatrist or psychologist but clearly she could not compel him to seek counseling. Basically, you or I or this guy's classmates and professors can see that he's likely to be dangerous but as the law is written, he cannot be made to seek counseling unless he makes a threat to others or himself.

I am very interested in this dilemma as I am grappling with a situation at my own college that is much less disturbing but troubling. It involves a student from an earlier semester who had been stabilized on medication but began to experience a psychotic break. She left but wants to return and for some reason really wants to take one of my classes. I'm not thrilled about the idea for various reasons and neither is the school, but again legally there is not much we can do. I

People don't think logically in a time like this. Some Asian students began to worry about reprisal? Not likely but then it wasn't likely that a fellow student would shoot 32 other people in cold blood. While I wish they hadn't felt at risk, I'm hardly going to condemn them for not thinking completely logically...if indeed their concerns were illogical. One thing I've learned is that a lot of racism aimed at minorities is below the radar of the average white middle-class person (i.e. me).

Having said that, I teach at a college not so very far from Tech and a lot of students had friends at Tech. On Monday they were frantically emailing, texting and calling all day; today we were all very somber. At no time did the gunman's ethnicity ever come up in discussion that I know of, and I talked to a lot of students in passing and in class. I think the anxiety felt by some Asian students will be transient. I'm sort of surprised that it was enough to warrant an article. I have a student working with me of Vietnamese descent whose sister is a Tech student (unharmed). I'll have to ask her what she thinks.

I said that most mentally ill people are not dangerous to anyone but themselves (which is found in multiple abnormal psychology information sources as well as the DSM, hardly a woman's magazine). I don't think I said psychotic people never hurt anyone (but even so, schizophrenia is present in about 1 out of 100 people, which is a lot of people; I too can think of schizophrenics who have been dangerous and violent but statistically they aren't the norm). In his guy's case he was apparently showing multiple danger signs and at least one professor notified the campus policy, student affairs, etc to no avail. It may not have been apparent that the fire he had reportedly set earlier was intentional. Otherwise he didn't meet the criteria the school needed to legally remove him, let alone commit him.

My words about mentally people are intended to dissuade others from becoming paranoid and over-reacting to mentally ill people, most of whom are grappling with a disease the best way they can. It would be a shame if mental illness regained its former degree of stigma.

I don't think there will ever be a time when most people feel that the perfect balance has been reached between the students' and the schools' rights when the student has been demonstrating irrational or seriously dysfunctional behavior, particularly when the student resists outreach.

The more I read about this guy, the more I think he suffered from a very serious mental disorder, probably paranoid schizophrenia. I guess time will tell. However, be careful with the assumption that if only caught in time, the guy could have stopped. In the absence of clear threat or serious disruption...and disturbed writing alone doesn't count...the Americans with Disabilities Act does not allow colleges to evict students for mental illness. I'm not sure that legally Tech could have done anything to dislodge the guy or force him into treatment. Most people suffering from mental illness are not a danger to anyone but themselves, so let's not rush into judgement.