Months after the lawsuit was first brought to court, former George Washington University student Jordan Nott — who was suspended from school after checking himself into a mental hospital with suicidal thoughts — GW settled the suit, opening up a floodgate of questions by universities across the nation who do not have policies addressing students with mental illness.

According to the lawsuit, Nott contemplated suicide following the suicide of his friend and sought help from the school’s University Counseling Center, which prescribed him medications. When the medications were ineffective, Nott checked himself into a mental health facility and, in October 2004, the school notified him of his suspension, saying he had breached the code of student conduct by engaging in “endangering behavior.”

In March, Nott filed a lawsuit against the university, citing discrimination under the American Disabilities Act.

“I was outraged when I heard,” said Karen Bower, Nott’s attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington D.C. — an advocacy group for people with mental disabilities. “It was outrageous for the university to respond they way the did.”

Bower, a specialist in cases involving the ADA, said she immediately knew she wanted to take Nott’s case.

“There were compelling facts — it really raised the issues that we’re seeing on college campuses,” Bower said. “With the responses we’re seeing across the country, we thought it could have a broad impact.”

Nott’s case is the second that disputed a college’s policy on students seeking help with mental problems. According to a press release on the Bazelon Center’s website, a student was barred from her dormitory last summer for attempting suicide at Hunter College in the City University of New York. The student was paid $65,000 in damages after the case settled, and school officials have agreed to revise its policy on the issue.

“Our hope is that universities will examine their policies and move toward being moral and empathetic toward students,” Bower said. “You don’t discriminate or impose discipline for cases of people with mental illness.”

Bower added that the Bazelon Center is working on a set of guidelines regarding standard procedures that schools should take into account in dealing with students with mental illness.

“We need to make it well-known that this should be treated as a mental health issue, not as a disciplinary issue,” she said. “We need increasing firewalls between counseling and administration to protect rightful confidentiality. Schools need . . . guidance on how to ensure that these schools’ actions will comply with the ADA.”

Bower said the guidelines will likely be ready by the end of the year.

“I hope that this difficult experience will result in positive changes in how student mental health issues are handled at campuses across the country,” Jordan Nott said in an Oct. 29 press release.

According to a study conducted by the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen Development Center, suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students. More than 1,100 deaths are expected to result each year on campuses across the country, with 18- to 24-year-olds more likely to consider suicide than any other age group.

According to the study, one out of every 12 students in college has seriously considered taking their own life. Additionally, in 1998, suicide killed more young adults than AIDS, cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, birth defects, stroke, influenza and chronic lung disease combined.

Allan Schwarz, an associate psychiatry professor and a senior staff psychologist at the University of Rochester’s Counseling Center, said the statistics could be worse.

“Because firearms are banned from campuses, the suicide rate among students is half the rate among comparable groups who are not students,” he said in an email.

“Particularly for men, there is no safer place for persons of traditional college age than at a four-year college or university campus,”

Additionally, he called Jordan Nott’s case, “predictably problematic.”

“We do not consider our students to be incapable of making decisions for themselves,” he said. “If you are concerned about you son or daughter shouldering the burden of being self-responsible adults, then we advise you do not to support their attending this institution financially or in other ways.”