One of the members of Governor
Kaine’s Virginia Tech Review Panel, Aradhana Sood, has co-authored a book (The Virginia Tech Massacre: Strategies and
Challenges for Improving Mental Health Policy on Campus and Beyond by
Aradhana Bela Sood and Robert Cohen) in which she reveals disturbing facts
about the instructions the Virginia Tech Review Panel was given.
Even for the
causal reader of the report, it was clear that the panel wanted to report
without holding anyone accountable. Indeed, the report was a telling testament
to the art of investigating a crime with the purpose of preventing litigation.
Now we have the proof.
Dr. Gerald Amada, one of the
founders and directors of the Mental Health Program, City College of San
Francisco, wrote a highly critical review of the Sood and Cohen book. Here is
what he says about the instructions given the panel:
“It is particularly telling, I
believe, that Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine thrust on the commission a
directive to focus on they incident itself (the massacre) and
not other ‘related issues’ (page10), such as presumably, those
pivotally important antecedents that clearly led up and contributed
to the massacre. To her credit, Sood acknowledges that the state
wanted to avoid any findings that might have liability
implications. ‘The specter of possible litigation was ever-present.’ (page
10), she points out …”
Dr. Amada’s
critique can be found in PsycCRITIQUES,
January 12, 2015, Vol. 60, No. 2, Article 1 © 2015 American Psychological
Association
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