Liability Discussion to What Extent,

Liability Discussion To what extent, if any, do you believe institutions should be liable to their students? Should there be above average liability? Schools are often said to be 'in loco parentis:' they serve in the place of student's parents. However, the degree to what this doctrine is enforced often remains quite fuzzy. Students may be of age, but may be supported by their parents -- and schools cannot reveal certain private details about student's behavior and conduct to their parents without the student's permission.

Students are treated like adults, in other words, but only some of the time. It is widely accepted that students must be protected by the university from harassment -- yet schools cannot infringe upon freedom of speech, which may include potentially offensive words so there is a limit to how much schools can be held liable for offensive conduct by students.

Schools may take extraordinary measures to protect students, and may have stricter standards than the law in society at large for what constitutes sexual harassment, a public health risk, or even simply poor conduct but they must balance the need for these stricter standards to protect themselves against legal action with the knowledge that most students are legal adults, and too much supervision runs against the need for expression in an academic environment, and for students to grow and mature.

A college is a community, and an additional level of responsibility must be assumed by the school to create a healthy community. For example, drunk and disorderly behavior might be a minor infraction in the real world, but a student who continually disrupts the community can be asked to leave it, given the risk he or she poses to other students.

But colleges must guard against assuming responsibility for student's hurt feelings -- for example, it is conceivable that having overly stringent hate speech standards that could limit the ability of a school newspaper to support the teaching of Huckleberry Finn in the classroom. There are many grey areas -- for example, does a university have a responsibility to expel a student recently diagnosed with a severe mental disorder who might be dangerous to others, even though.