Although the University of Virginia's College at Wise is standing by his expulsion, Steven Daniel Barber vows his legal battle with the school isn't finished.

Three weeks ago, the 23-year-old Gate City resident turned in a creative writing assignment that alarmed his professor and classmates, in which a narrator contemplates killing his teacher before apparently choosing suicide. Campus police confronted Barber the next day, searched his car and found three guns, a violation of school policy.

The matter has continued to seethe since the school ruled to expel him March 6. Barber has sounded off in the news media and on the Internet about his treatment -- even as Scott County authorities prepared further measures to keep Barber's concealed-carry permit suspended.

Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney Ron Elkins said Barber won't be charged with making a threat, but given the tone of Barber's paper, "If I were his professor, I would interpret that as a potential threat."

The story's first-person narrator contemplates killing his professor, "Mr. Christopher," before rejecting the idea in favor of suicide. Prosecutors say that Barber's creative writing professor, Christopher Scalia, is the son of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Scalia's family connection elevated the seriousness of the perceived threat, Elkins said.

Given events such as the Virginia Tech massacre, which Barber's story refers to, "I don't know how you could turn this paper in and not expect it to be seen as a threat," Elkins said.

Barber insists he intended no threat to anyone.

He appealed his expulsion, but the college upheld it. He will have to re-enlist in the military to pay off his student loans, he said in an e-mail. "After I re-enlist, I'm suing."

His girlfriend, Shamerine Burks, voiced her outrage over her boyfriend's expulsion on her online journal. "Shakespeare wrote about homicide, suicide, and hallucinations in his famous works. Was he ever barred from the Globe?" she wrote.

Barber also has angrily challenged claims made in Scott County court documents that he was involuntarily committed to a mental institution after the guns were found. It was the assertion by campus police that he had been committed that led a judge to suspend his concealed-carry permit.

Barber has shown The Roanoke Times copies of a temporary detention order signed Feb. 29 and a release paper dated March 3. Together, they appear to indicate that he was held in a mental institution for several days but that his evaluators found nothing wrong with him.

Scott County Commonwealth's Attorney Marcus McClung said he had viewed the situation as an emergency that needed a fast response. He pursued the petition using the best evidence he had available: testimony from a campus police sergeant that Barber had been committed.

McClung said he's preparing a new petition using a different statute, under which the issue of whether Barber was committed won't matter.

He noted that the suspension doesn't affect Barber's right to own firearms, and that Barber can appeal.

Asked about Barber's assertion that the college gave the wrong information to authorities, college Vice Chancellor Gary Juhan replied, "I can't comment on that."

He did not confirm Barber's expulsion. "The college considers this a closed incident at this time and will no longer offer public comment," he said.

The college did not make any public statements about Barber's case two weeks ago as the rumors flew and worried parents began to call.

Juhan said the school has procedures in place to determine levels of risk in a situation. Generally, "if we thought that there was any substantial risks to students," the student body would be notified.

Looking back on a situation such as the one UVa-Wise faced, "you always have critics," Elkins said. "I'm on the side of the school. I think they've done the right thing."