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The 'Toll Would Have Been Less'
Gov. Timothy Kaine, front, accepts the report of the Virginia Tech panel, which included Gordon Davies, left, Roger Depue, Tom Ridge and Diane Strickland.
(By Steve Earley -- The Virginian-pilot)
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The report concluded that confusion over state and federal privacy laws was a major factor contributing to Cho's problems going undetected.
"The widespread perception is that information privacy laws make it difficult to respond effectively to troubled students," the report stated. "This perception is only partly correct."
Often, the report said, people and organizations in possession of privileged information do not share it with others, even though the law permits them to do so.
Under a 1974 federal law, education records are private and can be released only for specific reasons. But the law applies to information about student academic records. At Virginia Tech, police and university officials sometimes wrongly believed the law prevented them from sharing mental health information with Cho's parents.
Virginia Tech Provost Mark G. McNamee said the university will push for changes in the privacy laws that prevented Fairfax schools from relaying anything about Cho's mental state to the college.
When the university accepted Cho, officials knew little more about him than his grade point average and SAT scores, he said.
"I think we are moving into a new era, a new national dialogue" about how individual privacy rights are weighed against public safety, McNamee said. "Safety has clearly risen to a higher profile."
Staff writers Amy Gardner, Annie Gowen, Sari Horwitz and Brigid Schulte contributed to this report. Somashekhar reported from Blacksburg.
