Opinion: This is a problem that is bigger than Stanford or Yale | CNN
Recent lawsuits against Yale and Stanford Universities put a necessary spotlight on the need to do better at caring for our students with mental health disabilities, writes David M. Perry, who argues that schools need to look beyond stigma and fear of liability to solutions that put reasonable accom...
Hasnain says:
It’s sad that mental health is still not taken as seriously as physical health by the public at large. So many people would do better with a little more support, understanding, and resources - if only we acknowledged that it’s something that’s real rather than something to be swept under the rug.
“But I have mental health disabilities of my own, and I work with college students. I see the rising pressures they face and their consequences in the classroom. Given what I see and hear every day and what I’ve experienced firsthand, I fear that these higher-profile stories from Stanford and Yale are just the tip of the iceberg, a tiny visible sliver of an immense problem across higher education. Essentially, though both institutions have denied this characterization, schools like Yale are using fear of an incident like the suicide at Stanford as a reason to push mentally disabled students off campus as quickly as possible.
It’s driven by stigma, and likely a fear of liability. And until we treat mental health as a disability – which is to say a protected category with specific civil rights protections – rather than reacting from stigma, it’s not going to get better. Meanwhile, every indicator we have is that the mental health pressures on young people have only gotten worse thanks to the pandemic, rising violence, the climate crisis and more. We have to do everything possible to support people in crisis.”
Posted on 2022-12-24T04:01:20+0000