Medical Leave Policy Unwise

At last week's meeting of the Committee on College Life (COCL), Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 explained a new policy for forced medical leave of absence. The policy would allow the dean of the College to place a student on leave for medical reasons if the student's behavior "poses a direct threat to the health or safety of the student or others" and if the behavior or threatening state "is the result of a medical condition," according to the proposal. While we understand that this policy would make it easier to quickly remove potentially dangerous students from the College, the power it places in the hands of one person--namely, the Dean--makes us uncomfortable.

First, we are appalled that the diagnosis ultimately comes from UHS and not from other doctors. UHS has had a frightening record of botches on mental-health cases, and we are loath to see that organization retain such a large influence on who stays and who goes. We are also concerned that the word dangerous is ill-defined and could apply to a number of conditions that would only loosely be described as such.

Second, we are concerned that students were not consulted about the proposal. Lewis said that medical leaves do not fall under the jurisdiction of any of the three student-faculty committees. We appreciate his thoughtfulness, then, in deigning to inform the committee representatives about the proposal, but we do wish that he had thought fit to do so sooner. After all, Director of University Health Services (UHS) David S. Rosenthal '59 told the committee that "a lot of work has gone into this proposal." Then why didn't students get wind of it earlier? We would like to see Lewis publish for student perusal a clearly-delineated list of what falls under the jurisdiction of those committees and what does not--and we would like students on committees to be able to contest those classifications.

Third, we worry that this policy gives the dean the sole power to decide whether a student stays or leaves. Under the plan, a student's only recourse would be an appeal to the Administrative Board, whose judgment might be as capricious as the Dean's.

We are pleased that COCL member Marco B. Simons '97 convinced the Dean to change the wording of the proposal from "the Dean may refer the dispute [to the Administrative Board]" to "the Dean will refer the dispute." At least this way, students are guaranteed an appeal if they feel they have been unfairly placed on medical leave. But we are sorry this provision was not included from the start. Next time, if Lewis is going to create a proposal that affects all students and then bring it before one of the student-faculty committees, we would like to see students at least asked about their opinions.