Reply to Stanford Sued After Following Another Student Suicide

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In the mid 90s while a college junior, my roommate and I received a disciplinary citation for excessive noise in our dorm room after 10pm, this was in the fall. We needed to pay a fine or do community service. We ignored the notice and the follow up, until in May at the start of finals we received a notice that if we dis nit comply we would not be able to return to college the next year. We both freaked out, roommate paid the fine and I did not have enough money left so I did comm service in the midst of finals.

Sharing this because, while I was scared to pieces by the uni’s notice and the timing was awful, I knew I deserved it and had to own up and didn’t question how the uni handled it. I do wonder if language about “not graduating” or in my case, not being permitted to return to school, is standard for any disciplinary violation, because I wouldn’t call a dorm noise complaint a high stakes action to be disciplined. This was all a different time, of course. [/quote]

That’s really interesting and has so many parallels. I’m curious if you can imagine if you had received that communication but without the “you can pay a fine or do community service” options and just the open-ended threat that you might not be able to return to campus. What do you think you would have done first, who would you have called, etc.?

I was in a similar situation in college receiving that kind of communication for a minor mistake and will never forget the lonely panic, especially because it was too late at night to call home in a different time zone, I was too embarrassed to go to friends until I understood what was happening, and I was too compliant to say something back to the administrators who contacted me, as well as too naive to realize I could have. We didn’t really have documents on the internet at the time, so my version of Katie Meyer’s frantic toggling between screens was furiously paging through the rules section of my course book to try to understand. I ended up graduating late because of it, and even with a diploma and it being mostly a secret, the shame followed me for years.[/quote]

I, too, felt a lot of shame - there was no way I would have called my parents whatever time of day I received the notice (my parents and I think many back then were much less involved in my day to day life - I only spoke to them once a week or so). I also was embarassed that my roommate could just pay the fine and I could not. And everyone I knew was busy in reading period although I am not sure I would have confided anyway - it did feel very lonely and scary. I do remember going into the dean’s office the next day and sobbing because I was so worried I would be kicked out of school, and the dean did not coddle me but nor made me feel targeted - I mostly remember thinking this was all my fault and how did I get into the mess/let it fester so long. Anyway, I have a lot of sympathy. [/quote]

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