Comments by "L.W. Paradis" (@l.w.paradis2108) on "Abandoned? Meet a Student Suing Yale for Pressuring Those with Mental Health Needs to Withdraw" video.

  1. U of C also had a terrible reputation for neglecting the physical health of students, for decades. I knew a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology who nearly died of pneumonia, and had to go home to California and be treated at Stanford. She returned and completed her thesis. Yes, they did this to a woman who was ABD. The Social Darwinism is rampant.
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  2. How would you characterize all the frat boys who got drunk from Friday afternoon to Monday morning? I consider that a mental health issue. You didn't know any of those?
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  3. No one being allowed to attend part-time, under any circumstances, is bizarre. Suppose a student was injured in a car crash due to a drunk driver, in which their mother was killed? A year of part-time studies is the right thing to do; dropping out, or attempting a full load are both unwise. You should always avoid dropping out -- you have to have a foot in the world. But you cannot ask yourself to do what you literally cannot.
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  4. I have an idea. You could read the class action complaint and actually see what it is they are asking. If you had any idea of what those years are like, you would know that anyone with any sort of setback that affects their mental health should not be excluded from their previous activities and their friends and their life. Throwing them out of school, and prohibiting them from visiting campus, for no reason apart from their major depressive disorder, is astounding. If you had cancer, you would not withdraw. You would undergo treatment, and then return to your life -- your job, your friends, your social activities, and you would be advised by your doctors not to isolate yourself. So, is "old school America" a place that excludes the less-than-perfect? Is that part of its "tradition" of Social Darwinism and eugenics? I wouldn't doubt it. Maybe "old school" is exactly what got us to this place. It's also remarkable how many future political leaders and prominent jurists spent an inordinate amount of time at Yale getting drunk. That wasn't a "community disruption" somehow. But it certainly was "old school."
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  5. Wow someone is extremely resentful and thinks they are being very clever. Academic excellence is not a World Wrestling Entertainment event. Anyone who could get into Yale on merit could teach a lot of the community college courses.
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  6. The previous post has some good thoughts. I wonder if other people have convinced you to feel self-loathing? You do know that literal heroes, who have saved lives while under fire, have had anxiety issues -- plus PTSD, plus phobias. I'll never forget the anonymous memoir of one man who said that if he had not been decorated for bravery, he too would think he must be a weakling and a coward. But he knew he wasn't. Part of your brain is not sending the correct signals, and other parts know it. That's why you suffer. If you felt no blame for simply following your impulse to avoid what your brain is telling you to avoid, you wouldn't be suffering. It's your knowledge that avoidance is objectively unnecessary that makes you suffer. Well, ignore the negative voices. Don't try to stop them or argue with them. Just note they are there, note that they are not unfamiliar, because you've had them before, and then give yourself permission to go about your day without heaping criticism on yourself. Always do as much as you can, plus try to do just a little more. Have you ever read any memoirs of people who lived through WWII? I remember a video of Jacqueline de Romilly, in which she said that the clarity of the years of the Resistance to Nazism had made that time easier to bear in some ways than the subsequent decades of peace, relative safety, and much greater confusion. You don't know who has it objectively harder in every respect.
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  7. ​ @LadyBug1967  Well, Princess Diana and her oldest sister both had eating disorders, and Diana contemplated suicide. George W. Bush certainly drank to excess in college on the weekends. Justice Kavanaugh did as well. Then of course there is also the Unabomber, who was a child prodigy in mathematics and a PhD and professor long before he became a psychotic killer and recluse. Maybe they all knew they had to hide their problems, and had support to help them cover it up. Are all of these people younger than you? I think these women were naive to admit anything to anyone. You don't tell your school about your mental health issues anymore than you would tell your boss. Discrimination is almost a certainty, and in any case, you are now dependent on their mercy. Federal law protects the privacy of medical records for a reason. Of course everyone needs to confide in others, but you have to choose carefully. Bill Gates tried to get Paul Allen to quit Microsoft when Allen was diagnosed with cancer. Allen lived over three decades after his diagnosis -- that is over 30 productive years he might have squandered. People need to take a lesson from this. Of course there were depressed students in your class, students who thought about killing themselves, and students with odd combinations of learning disabilities and talents. They confided in the art students, musicians, theatre and literature majors, not the sorority sisters, and they certainly never told a professor. They were smarter about life.
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  8. No one discussing this lawsuit is black. Are you okay? Do you have someone you could call?
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  9.  @LoneWolf_Cub_Ogami_Itto  Read the complaint and see what the students' legal basis is for asking a court for INJUNCTIVE relief (not money damages). A Republican president signed the ADA. Or, have someone read the complaint to you. You could do that, too.
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  10. Well, maybe you should look up the complaint, which is available online, and read it. It states what the law says about the rights (not "privileges") of those with various handicaps. If federal law says you do not have to accept a "brutal" world, then maybe you don't. If federal law says you have a RIGHT to REASONABLE accommodations, provided you are able to meet the REASONABLE demands of a school (or employer, etc.), then guess what? Looks like you do. By the way, they are not suing for money. They are suing for injunctive relief, to make Yale obey the law. Cheeky of them, what?
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  11. Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir, Prozac Nation, gives a very different account of her experience at Harvard, but it did precede the period of major school shootings. The irony is that her very candid and at times brilliant book was panned by critics. Harvard treated her fairly, but many of her readers with soapboxes didn't. I only found out about it and read it when Ms. Wurtzel died of a relatively rare form of cancer.
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  12. They are not suing for money, but for injunctive relief, which I assume would include removing any negative marks on their academic record.
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  13. There are four lawyers listed on the complaint, with lead counsel being Kasey Considine, based in Connecticut, and several from Washington, D.C. These are always public records.
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  14. A middle-class student at Yale is relatively underprivileged, on a scholarship, and rare.
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  15. The middle-class kids probably worked very hard to get there.
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  16. If that is the case, then those students cannot benefit from a reasonable accommodation and would not qualify to receive one. Not everyone who has had a major depressive disorder IS a danger to anybody. That is the point of anti-discrimination laws: just because someone, somewhere, committed suicide in their college dorm does not mean that you can exclude anyone who ostensibly has something in common with that person. Maybe you should read the complaint? Find out what the suit is about first, before you disagree with it.
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  17. No, they are demanding declaratory and injunctive relief.
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  18.  @LadyBug1967  Well, for most ailments, physical or psychological, the advice is to continue with daily activities as much as possible and as soon as possible. I think that's right. I don't believe in lengthy "rest cures." I think Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, had a pretty definitive view on that, even before the scientific research bore him out. Taking more time than you actually need is a trap, and creates bad habits that a person will have to break. I agree that people with psychological problems are vulnerable to picking the wrong friends. They often feel unworthy, which harms their good judgment. The danger now is that those wrong friends could be into drugs or otherwise dangerous. That wasn't very likely in 1950. I grew up in the 1970s to early '80s. A lot of people then thought a girl with brown eyes couldn't be "really" pretty. This was well before social media.
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  19. From what, exactly? Please be specific.
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  20. Contract terms contrary to federal law and public policy cannot be enforced. I see you went to an unaccredited law school online.
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  21. Actually, they would. The ADA protects people with disabilities, as does the FMLA. They would not be fired and have to reapply to their jobs, but instead they would be able to return to productive life as soon as they could meet their employers' reasonable expectations. And on top of it, in school, you pay the school. On the job, your job pays you.
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  22. If someone is a danger, then no reasonable accommodation is possible, nor would reapplying be possible. They are not asking for an unreasonable accommodation. This has nothing to do with anyone protecting their kid.
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  23. Really? A remarkable number of future "leaders" in business, law, and politics saw fit to drink their way through Yale. Clearly the academic demands cannot be all that great. None of the students in this lawsuit are "defiantly" demanding to stay in school. They need a reasonable accommodation, and in order to qualify, they will be required to demonstrate to a court that they could benefit from a reasonable accommodation, and meet the university's expectations if they got one. A person with major depression who can attend school part time or work part time most certainly should, and in fact, dropping out and isolating themselves could be very dangerous. I suggest you talk to a real psychiatrist about these disorders. Some of the most talented people in the US had them. You could start by reading Redfield Jamison's work, for example. I could appreciate having a limit on how long someone can take less than a full academic load, but entirely excluding those who can perform but need some relief has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Very few universities in the world do that.
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  24. You could find the complaint and see. It's online, pdf, anyone can read it.
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  25. For students who -- for whatever reason -- cannot take a public stand and fight, let this be a lesson: DO NOT share your mental health status with your school anymore than you would with your employer. The privacy of your medical records is federally protected for a reason. If you are accused of threatening suicide in front of a roommate, deny it. Or claim you were rehearsing lines from a play. I'm serious. Don't confess anything, and force your opponent to bear the burden of proof. Once you share, you can't change your mind and take it back. It's a bell you can't unring. This is a life lesson, too; you have a right to remain silent, and to seek care from those who will guard your privacy and put your well being FIRST. Allow yourself that. Remember, when Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen developed cancer, Bill Gates tried to make him quit. He lived well over 30 productive years after his diagnosis.
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  26. Read the complaint. Or, have someone find it and read it to you.
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  27.  @breakingbadenterprise328  Oh, so the fact that federal law was violated YET AGAIN is of no consequence? You don't know the race of the plaintiffs on whose behalf the organizational plaintiff is suing. P. S. Don't say this on your exam to enter Yale Law School. And stay away from get-rich-quick schemes, you'll be duped for sure.
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  28. Read the complaint, which asks for injunctive relief. One possibility would be one to two semesters of attending school part-time, being allowed to reside on campus, having access to the counseling that is part of student health insurance, and of not being pressured into withdrawing.
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