NCHERM Group Partner, W. Scott Lewis, quoted in Inside Higher Ed

Who Protects the Suicidal?

However, OCR’s resolution agreement with Western Michigan, despite the tragic end of the student who prompted it, appears to indicate that the office is not changing its position and intends to enforce it, said W. Scott Lewis, partner at the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management.

“I think we’re in the same place, and that is that the OCR has shown no real desire to back off the idea of reading harm-to-self as a component for involuntary withdrawal,” said Lewis, who is also president and co-founder of the National Behavioral Intervention Team Association. “It’s left schools in a difficult position.”

In the meantime, Lewis said, the most important thing is for campuses to do is make sure they’ve got all the necessary support systems in place – and are using them – for self-harming students who either refuse to leave or who are involuntarily withdrawn and then readmitted. That also means being in close touch with the student’s emergency contact.

“The student comes back, they’re suicidal, you have to take them and then they harm themselves – the question that’s going to be asked is, what kind of support did you put there?” Lewis said. “I want to be able to say in my own mind and my own heart that we did everything we could.”

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