The Rights and Responsibilities of the Modern University: Who Assumes the Risk of College Life?

The past decades have seen an alarming increase in campus crime, alcohol abuse by college students, hazing and other risky student activities. There is a growing awareness of the need to make safer college campuses. While danger to students has been on the rise, the relationships between students and their universities has grown increasingly distant. The rise in danger and the loss of community on college campuses has been inadvertently facilitated by legal rules. Courts crafted legal protections for colleges which backfired: legal rules designed to protect colleges from lawsuits instead encouraged colleges to become insular and to avoid positive steps to protect student safety.

Bickel and Lake re-imagine the role of law in university/student relations. Picking up on recent court decisions and legislative initiatives, the authors describe a new legal paradigm for college safety - the facilitator university. The modern college is not a baby-sitter or custodian of students: but it is also not a mere bystander to student safety. The facilitator university balances the rights and responsibilities of students and institutions and envisions campuses which feature shared responsibility for student safety. Law can be a positive tool for improving safety and community on modern campuses.

 

“This work is a significant contribution to the law of student safety.... It reconciles the best advice of a university lawyer with the best instincts of an experienced student affairs administrator.”—Paul J. Ward, Arizona State University and Former President, National Association of College and University Attorneys; and Christine K. Wilkinson, Vice President for Student Affairs, Arizona State University

 

“By now it is probably obvious to college counselors and psychotherapists why this book will be immensely relevant and essential to their professional work. It contains valuable legal and historical information that can provide context and guidance in their direct work with student clients and it is a bright beacon that can inform and illuminate their consultation services with colleagues. I recommend it to readers unqualifiedly.”—Gerald Amada, PhD, Journal of College Student Psychotherapy; Vol. 17, No. 2, 2002

Robert Bickel is a Professor of Law Emeritus at Stetson University College of Law.

Peter Lake is the Charles A. Dana Chair and Director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University College of Law.