VA: Bill on campus threat response passes after open records deal

By Brian McNeill, DailyProgress.com

The General Assembly approved a measure March 13th that would allow campus threat assessment teams to discuss internally criminal and mental health records of students deemed to be a potential threat to safety.

The teams — which include law enforcement, university administration, mental health providers, residence life officials and others — were formed on each of Virginia’s public university campuses in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007.

The new legislation, sponsored by Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle, and Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, aims to authorize the teams to receive the previously confidential records with an eye toward preventing campus violence.

Both chambers of the General Assembly had previously approved a version of the bill, but the House and Senate differed on whether the public should be allowed to view the teams’ records after another tragedy similar to the Virginia Tech massacre.

Under a compromise reached Saturday, the teams’ records — such as notes or minutes — would be released under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act “in the event an individual who has been under assessment commits an act, or is prosecuted for the commission of an act that has caused the death of, or caused serious bodily injury, including any felony sexual assault, to another person.”

In the event that the records are released to the public, the records will not include criminal or mental health records.

Furthermore, the threat assessment team would dedact from the records “information identifying any person who provided information to the threat assessment team under a promise of confidentiality.”

Bell, who had previously pushed to keep the records private, praised the deal.

“I think this is a good compromise,” Bell said Saturday. “It will allow the team members to discuss all the facts of the case, and preserving confidentiality for people who make reports will help ensure that students feel comfortable coming forward.”

Open government advocates had been asking for the legislation to permit the release of the threat assessment teams’ records following campus violence.

Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Coalition for Open Government, said the language in the compromise legislation “sounds like it satisfies our concerns.”

“We were concerned that the original bill was a total shutdown of those records,” she said.

The public needs the ability to view the threat assessment teams’ records after a tragedy occurs, Rhyne said, for lessons to be learned that could minimize the chances of more violence in the future.