(UPDATE: The Post has picked up on the story and placed it prominently on the front page of its Web site. It will be on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper… one day after my story was published. Here is a link. The story doesn’t add anything new, and is very similar to the story we had in January. It does, however, have some good context about the history of this sort of issue at other schools.)

I’ve spent the semester reporting on the situation of Jordan Nott, a former student who has filed a lawsuit against the University, saying the counseling center breached his confidentiality when he sought depression treatment and checked into the hospital. He also says GW’s policies — which barred him from campus, issued him an interim suspension, and essentially forced him to leave GW — are discriminatory against those suffering from depression. You can see the article I did with Brandon Butler in January here and you can see the article appearing in today’s paper here.

The crux of the matter is, how did various GW administrators find out Jordan voluntarily checked himself into GW Hospital after thinking about suicide? Jordan’s lawyer maintains that the counseling center and the hospital alerted administrators. But she won’t say why she thinks that’s the case. Tracy Schario, GW’s spokesperson on this situation, said it may have been a friend, a roommate, a family member, a CF, etc. who alerted GW that Jordan was in the hospital. She wouldn’t say how exactly GW learned of the hospitalization. So we have a situation where Jordan’s lawyer won’t say why she thinks the counseling center is at fault, and GW won’t say exactly how it knows the counseling center isn’t at fault.

Students, of course, are caught in the middle, not knowing whether or not they should trust the counseling center.

As I’ve been doing these stories, two students have alerted me to situations they had that were strikingly similar to Jordan’s. A third contacted me yesterday with a situation that also had similarities. The first two were reluctant to share enough details to let me write an article — one of said s/he thought if s/he talked, the University might expel him/her. That probably is not the case, but it makes reporting on this issue a challenge. I’m going to see if I can get a comprehensive article in our paper discussing these three students’ experiences some time after the break.

If you or a friend has had a situation like that of Jordan, please e-mail me directly at [email protected].