Sara Lipka
FEBRUARY 11, 2009
Chronicles of Higher Education
The family of a student who was brutally murdered in Maharishi University of Management’s dining hall in 2004 reached a confidential settlement with the university on Monday.
The murder occurred before threat assessment and behavioral intervention had become staples on college campuses. But the family of the victim, Levi A. Butler, argued in two lawsuits—one is still pending—that university officials should have known that another student, Shuvender Sem, was dangerous. The suits also said that officials at Maharishi, a small institution in rural Iowa that is grounded in the principles of Transcendental Meditation, could have prevented Mr. Sem from killing Mr. Butler. Experts described the case as a textbook example of an institution’s doing almost everything wrong.
Mr. Sem, a diagnosed schizophrenic, enrolled at the university in January 2004 without disclosing his mental illness. According to the lawsuits filed by Mr. Butler’s family, Mr. Sem’s behavior became increasingly bizarre and aggressive. He threatened to kill a classmate, the lawsuits said, by bashing his head into a sink and stomping on him. In a class on March 1, 2004, Mr. Sem attacked a fellow student with a pen, stabbing him in the face and throat and leaving cuts that required stitches.
University officials did not inform law-enforcement officers of the attack, but decided to send Mr. Sem home to Pennsylvania. They arranged a flight for the following morning, according to court documents filed on behalf of both the university and Mr. Butler’s family. Meanwhile, Joel Wysong, the dean of men at the time, took Mr. Sem to Mr. Wysong’s campus apartment.
While Mr. Wysong was in another room—the lawsuits say he was meditating—Mr. Sem took a knife from the kitchen and left the apartment. Mr. Wysong, without notifying law-enforcement officers, went looking for Mr. Sem and found him in the dining hall. The dean did not immediately approach the student, according to court documents. Mr. Sem soon began screaming obscenities and, with the kitchen knife, stabbed Mr. Butler repeatedly in the chest.
Mr. Sem was charged with first-degree murder, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
The university reviewed its safety policies and practices and released a lengthy report in July 2004. The report included several recommendations, such as creating student-wellness and crisis-response teams.
What Not To Do
In 2006, Mr. Butler’s family sued the university in federal court in both Iowa and California, where his parents reside. John Killian, the student Mr. Sem had attacked with a pen, also sued Maharishi; that case was previously settled. The court in California held off on Mr. Butler’s case pending the result of the one his family was pursuing in Iowa.
In Iowa, the family alleged gross negligence by the university. The lawsuit argued that administrators had violated their own security policies and “acted with reckless disregard for the safety of others” by, among other things, failing to alert students, campus-security officials, and law-enforcement officers of the attack on Mr. Killian. The family also said that administrators had failed to supervise Mr. Sem adequately after the pen attack and to “properly screen” him before admitting him to the university.
Among the lawsuit’s other claims is that the university engaged in fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation by asserting in promotional materials that it was “violence free” and “a safe haven of peace, friendship, and zero crime.”
The terms of the settlement are confidential. In a written statement, William Goldstein, the university’s general counsel, said only that the case had been resolved “to the satisfaction of all parties.”
The California court will now pick up the Butler family’s lawsuit, which the university has sought to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds. The case differs slightly from the one in Iowa, where state law allowed Mr. Butler’s estate, not his parents, to sue.
In California, the family will argue again that Maharishi was negligent in its handling of Mr. Sem. “The university was on notice that he was very unstable,” said Stephen R. Eckley, a lawyer in Des Moines who represents the Butler family.
Legal experts called the case instructive. If the family’s assertions are true, said Martin Michaelson, a lawyer in Washington who specializes in higher education, they “illustrate vividly a great many things that a university or college should not do.”
In particular, administrators without specific training in law enforcement or counseling should not supervise students who have been identified as potentially disturbed, said W. Scott Lewis, associate general counsel at Saint Mary’s College and partner in the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management. “This is a reminder,” he said, “that that’s an incredibly poor practice.”
But Maharishi could not have legally done at least one thing the family’s lawsuits suggested. Although the university could have responded differently to Mr. Sem’s behavior, officials there could not have insisted that he disclose his mental-health history before admitting him, said Karen A. Bower, a senior staff lawyer for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
“You can ask individuals, but you cannot require that they provide that information,” Ms. Bower said, citing the Americans With Disabilities Act. “That screening,” she said, “is often used as a means to discriminate.”
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