If colleges aren’t in loco parentis, who is?

A lot of people at Virginia Tech knew about Seung Hui Cho. At least two of his professors knew, and tried to get him to accept counseling. The Virginia Tech police knew: they talked to him after two female students said he was making unwanted calls and sending unwelcome instant messages. Officials and doctors at a psychiatric hospital knew about Cho: he was committed there briefly.

It’s not clear, however, whether any of the people who knew Cho at Blacksburg told the people who knew him best and might have been able to help—his parents. Did anyone tell them?

It has been hard not to react to the tragedy at Virginia Tech as a father. One of my sons will soon graduate from college, and the other is about to graduate from high school and head off to college. Two of his options were colleges in the Virginia state system, both somewhat closer to DC than Virginia Tech is. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to put yourself in the place of the bereft Virginia Tech parents: sending your child off to what seems like a safe campus in a small Virginia town, so close that you almost feel you could reach out and protect him if need be.

What about Seung Hui Cho’s parents? What did they think would become of their son when he went away to college?

The Washington Post reports that Cho’s parents “were largely unknown and disconnected in the [Korean American community in the] Washington area…’like ghosts,’” said a representative of a Korean American association.

Their son is described as “a dramatically uncommunicative boy” who never spoke, even in class, and “carried violent writings in his notebooks.” Yet his parents may not have been without hope. He was admitted to a well-thought-of college so his high school grades must have been reasonably good, whether he spoke in class or not. He belonged to the science club; he must have had some social instinct. His band teacher asked him to play his trombone louder—another social connection young Cho undertook, and an interest in music as well.

Perhaps Seung Hui Cho’s parents thought that in the more diverse environment at Virginia Tech, their son might emerge from his shell, might make connections that he hadn’t in high school. No doubt they hoped for the best. He progressed through his senior year; he must have taken exams, written papers, done well enough not to flunk out. Perhaps his parents thought they saw improvement during his weekends at home, or perhaps they saw him worsen, but were at a loss to know what to do about it. Or perhaps, in the way of so many college students, he told his parents little about his life at college, and they hoped that no news was good news.

I’ve seen nothing in the media coverage that indicates whether or not the Virginia Tech teachers and administrators who knew what Cho had become at college told his parents. The university administrator types who have appeared in the media have all stressed that the law forbids them from telling students’ parents anything about their children’s good or bad fortune—anything except, of course, their children’s college-related financial obligations. But a colleague who has worked on several university campuses says that she has been told by at least one college counselor that he has taken it upon himself to tell parents that their children are encountering difficulties at school and could use help. Maybe some caring Virginia Tech professor, resident assistant or counselor did call Cho’s parents.

But maybe no one called. Maybe they believed that a young man in his late teens and early twenties is a true adult, entitled to be left alone if he so desires. That would seem to be what the student privacy law assumes. But “if the law supposes that,” as Charles Dickens’s Mr. Bumble put it in Oliver Twist, “’the law is a ass–a idiot.’”

The idea that people become adults at the moment they turn 18 or 21 is a favorite fantasy of those who have just turned 18 or 21. I probably thought it myself at that age. But especially for those who attend college, full adulthood often arrives gradually. That’s one of the things college is good for. Students, especially those who go away to school, are granted autonomy and responsibility, but in a more forgiving environment than they will face when they are no longer students. Their mistakes have consequences—low GPAs are often difficult to raise—but courses end and grades are given, and new semesters and new courses bring clean slates.

Atrocities like the one that took place at Virginia Tech are almost impossible to prevent, whether on college campuses or in the wider society. Ours is too free a culture to be able to completely forestall acts that, before they are committed, we can barely imagine, much less prevent. But we may be able to prevent some. Just as important, we may be able to help troubled college students before their inner demons become so powerful that they are driven to violence.

One step in the right direction would be a more realistic definition of adulthood. Why not base our definition of adulthood, at least for the purposes of notifying parents of college students, on economic dependence? There would be a certain take-my-money-live-by-my-rules satisfaction to parents; but that wouldn’t be the point.

Economic independence usually comes with a job, and often with a separate residence, and a car—comes, in other words, with obligations and responsibility. A young man or woman who has assumed such responsibilities is more likely to be ready to make their own decisions when difficulties arise at school. Those who haven’t reached that point may need the continuing backup of parental support.

Why not make it easy for them to get it. The law doesn’t have to be a ass.

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