Overreaction or Not?

We can't yet assess whether Cary-Grove High School's actions are justified or not in arresting a senior honor student for writing a "disturbing" essay, but it is on the face of it disturbing that the first response is to call the police and charge him with disorderly conduct. Sun Times here, Trib here.

Overreaction or not? Some of the signs of Cho's problems that took him out of the ordinary adolescent angst was that he rarely spoke, didn't meet anyone's eyes, and took photos of girls under their desks. Yes, and he wrote very violent essays.

Maybe the high school had to get the police involved in order to ensure that this student, who is an adult at 18, would talk to a psychologist, but it seems there are a few steps missing here, including talking to the parents. If this is the first time this student has raised any warning flags, this action by the school seems excessive. And after the Virginia Tech shooting it is natural for this to be on the minds of students, and for them to write about it in a creative essay.

We have the nexus of individual privacy rights, the school's responsibility to try to ensure the safety of all its students, and then there's the issue of a student's future---passing the baton from high school to college.

We'll be debating all of this for some time, but it's important that we do, it's overdue.

Related post: Sad Thoughts

UPDATE: Essay by Professor Thomas Sowell, RCP "Today's Shootings and 60's Collective Guilt"

UPDATE: Latest WaPo on Cho:

Flaherty said investigators have been unable to establish a motive for the shootings. "We haven't been able to determine what precipitated the event," he said. "We talk about possible motives and theories, but we don't have any evidence to support anything." Cho left a note in his dorm room and sent material to NBC railing against the rich and privileged and comparing himself to the downtrodden, but officials said the material does not explain his actions.

UPDATE: Safe School Initiative, May 2002, Secret Service and DOE

UDPATE: Daniel Henninger, WSJ:

Among the reasons widely adduced for not doing something about Cho's violent proclivities are HIPAA and FERPA, the confidentiality laws for health records and college students' records. Well, there's no FERPA for high schools. There is merely the weird cultural refusal to turn in bad actors to adult authority. In one school attack, so many students knew it was coming that 24 were waiting on a mezzanine to watch, one with a camera. The enemy is us.

And Henninger brings up the issue of the threat of lawsuits hampering common sense, for which lawmakers hold some responsibility.

UPDATE: Local schools review their crisis plans.