GWU Suit Prompts Questions Of Liability

Nott began going to the University Counseling Center, he said.

He began taking psychiatric drugs and told counselors he thought about suicide but would not act on it, according to the complaint, and he did not attempt suicide.

In the hospital, one of the letters he received suggested that he could withdraw to defer the charges. He decided not to argue his case at a school judicial hearing to be held two days after he left the hospital, he said, worried that an effort to fight the charges would fail and leave him with a permanent black mark, an expulsion or suspension, on his transcript.

He withdrew, went home to Upstate New York, he said, missing his friends and worried that he had ruined his education. Weeks later, he waited for his father and friends to lug things down from his dorm because, he said, he had been told he could be arrested for trespassing.

If he had known, he said, he never would have gone to the hospital.

The counseling center staff followed ethical and professional guidelines and didn't disclose confidential information, Schario said. She can't discuss specifics of the case but said officials can find out about students through many sources, including roommates and dorm staff.

It takes an extraordinary circumstance for the university to step in, she said. As to whether there needs to be a suicide attempt or violent act, she said, "sometimes yes. There could be words expressing a behavior, a suicide attempt, other potentially endangering behaviors."

His suspension is the procedure they use to ensure due process, she said. GWU is considering changes, Schario said, including whether judicial proceedings are the best way to handle such cases.

In April 2005, he withdrew permanently from GWU, and transferred to the University of Maryland.

He's 20 now, a senior already because he has crammed in classes. He looks easygoing, and he said he's not depressed anymore, but there's a determined edge in his blue eyes.

"I'm trying to make this college experience," he said, "as short as possible."