Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Bill opens threat assessments to public view
The legislation lets the public see the workings of teams that identify threats of violence at colleges and universities.
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The workings of college and university threat assessment teams would be opened to the public after violent incidents under a compromise bill passed by the General Assembly.
The compromise came after weeks of negotiations between legislators and open government advocates and now goes to Gov. Bob McDonnell, who is expected to act on it before April 21. The governor may sign, veto or amend the bill.
"It's a good outcome for everyone," Virginia Press Association Executive Director Ginger Stanley said of the legislation.
"It gives the teams the flexibility to meet and discuss the records they need to do their work. And at the same time, the public has the opportunity for oversight in the case of a catastrophic event," Stanley said.
Virginia Coalition for Open Government Executive Director Megan Rhyne also applauded its passage.
In October, officials at the University of Virginia requested a bill be drafted that would facilitate the sharing of private records and sensitive information about faculty, staff and students who may present a threat of violence. But UVa also proposed a provision that would hide from the public all records produced by those teams, even in the case of a mass tragedy such as the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech shootings.
Other public colleges and universities, including Tech, supported the bill, at least in concept. But open government advocates argued that the secrecy provision would hinder public accountability for decision-makers and stymie efforts to learn from violent incidents.
VPA, with support from the open government coalition, proposed and lobbied for a "lookback provision" that would open team records on violent incidents, so long as those records were not protected by state or federal privacy rules.
The final bill, passed Saturday, requires release of reports, minutes and other documents if an individual being monitored by a threat assessment team commits or is prosecuted for a crime that results in death or serious injury, including felony sexual assault.
Criminal history, health and scholastic records, as well as the names of whistle-blowers who provide information, will remain closed to the public under the bill, even after a violent incident.
The legislature mandated the creation of threat assessment teams at colleges and universities in 2008 on the recommendation of a special state investigative panel.
That panel, constituted by former Gov. Tim Kaine in 2007, studied the causes of the Tech shootings and found that better information sharing about Seung-Hui Cho's increasingly erratic behavior may have helped prevent the tragedy.
