Mandatory Leave Policies Force Suicidal Students Off Campus and Away From Support

Many universities have policies that require or strongly pressure students who are hospitalized for a suicide attempt or who disclose suicidal ideation to take a mandatory leave of absence. The stated rationale is student safety, but the practical effect is that the student is removed from their housing, social network, classes, and campus-based mental health care at the moment they are most vulnerable. They are sent 'home,' which for many students is the environment that caused their distress in the first place. The consequences are cascading. The student loses their housing immediately or at the end of the semester. Their financial aid may be suspended. Their health insurance, if it is through the university SHIP, terminates. They must reapply for readmission, often with a requirement to demonstrate 'fitness to return' through documentation from an outside provider, which assumes they can access and afford an outside provider during their leave. Students of color and LGBTQ+ students are disproportionately affected because they are more likely to come from home environments that are unsafe or unsupportive. This persists because mandatory leave policies serve the university's risk management interests, not the student's clinical interests. A student who dies by suicide while enrolled is a liability event; a student who dies during a leave of absence is not the university's legal problem in the same way. University counsel advises these policies to reduce institutional exposure. The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and other advocates have challenged these policies as discriminatory under the ADA and Section 504, and some schools have reformed them, but the majority of institutions still have some version of involuntary separation for mental health crises. The policies treat suicidal ideation as a conduct issue rather than a medical condition.