At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a tragedy is resurfacing. The case of the 2009 suicide of doctoral student Han Duy Nguyen is advancing this month toward a possible trial.
In 2011, the victim’s family sued the school, two professors and an associate dean for wrongful death, alleging in court documents that the officials and the university did not do enough to help him, despite concerns that various university employees had shared with officials regarding Nguyen’s mental wellbeing, The Boston Globe reported.
A Middlesex County Superior Court denied MIT’s request to dismiss the wrongful-death charge on grounds that Nguyen should legally be classified as an employee rather than just a student, because he was also a research assistant. This motion would limit MIT’s liability in the case. MIT and Nguyen’s professors have denied that any of them did anything to cause Nguyen’s death, also denying that they were responsible for his mental health issues in general.
However, the lawsuit alleges another story. Emails sent by faculty say that professors knew about Nguyen’s mental health issues and feared that he would harm himself, and therefore were lenient on him when it came around exam time, when he often seemed especially stressed. But one professor called Nguyen to scold him about a rude, possibly offensive email he sent to another faculty member who was considering him for a research position on campus. Just moments later, Nguyen jumped to his death from the top of a campus building, according to the Globe.
Attorney Jeffrey Beeler, who represents Nguyen’s family, said in the lawsuit that the phone conversation “drove this young man — who the defendants knew to be at risk — quite literally over the edge.”
On Jan. 6, Judge Bruce R. Henry of Middlesex ruled that the debate was to be settled by a jury, noting that “there are too many conflicting pieces of material evidence.” However, Henry did note the phone call from the professor as the “tipping point” leading to Nguyen’s suicide, the Globe reported.
The professor, Birger Wernerfelt, wrote in emails that he “read [Nguyen] the riot act,” and suggested that he give up on his goal of earning a doctorate.
Wrongful death lawsuits are extremely rare in cases of campus suicide. An estimated 1,100 college students commit suicide each year, Nance Joy of the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit that works to prevent suicide on college campuses, told the Globe. Joy said that it is critical for faculty, staff and other students to encourage those at risk to consider counseling.
“The sooner they reach out for help before things go too far, the better the prognosis,” Roy said. “That’s the challenge — to engage students early on.”
And to a certain extent, Roy is correct. The university is responsible for not having an environment that is so stressful that it leads students to suicide, but different people react to different things in unique ways. It’s hard to monitor who is going to reach out at the “right” time, and who won’t do anything until it’s too late.
We don’t know if MIT could have done more for Nguyen — the school is, in fact, known to have one of higher education’s most comprehensive counseling programs. It has made improvements to the program after a series of suicides (and criticisms) over the past two decades.
In addition, one always needs to take these events on a case-by-case basis. In this case, the parents’ anger toward the school is understandable. They send their son away to an institution that they feel is supposed to take care of him, and a tragic event like this happens. On the other hand, Nguyen was 25 years old when he took his life, a full-grown adult. If he weren’t under some kind of institution, he would be expected to fend for himself.
The sad loss of an adult who also happened to be a graduate student should not be blamed on faculty. They did suspect that he was suicidal, as noted in emails and court documents, and sadly, they were correct. Had Wernerfelt not called Nguyen that afternoon, it is entirely possible that the next person he came in contact with could have been blamed in the same way. Nguyen did get medical help, but unfortunately, that is not always enough. Mental illness is a devastating thing, something that our society needs to learn more about, and something that is more complicated than a single conversation.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this editorial stated that officials had shared “concerns with the family about the student’s mental health for months before the suicide.” The family was in fact not informed by MIT about the concerns of the university’s employees. The editorial has been edited to reflect this change.
