Four years ago, two Georgetown students made a fatal mistake. They drank too much, got in a fight, and as a result, one of them, David A. Shick, lost his life.
It's hard to decide a punishment for a crime like this, since both students were faulted for starting the fight, but Georgetown should have known better than to assign the student who killed Schick a 10-page paper and alcohol counseling. What can you possibly write in a 10-page paper that would give justice to the parents of a dead son?
In response to this, J. Mathew Shick, David's brother, is trying to pass a new provision on the Higher Education Act that would try to ensure colleges and universities assign punishments proportionate to their crimes. The Schick case makes the need for this legislation obvious.
It would be regrettable if this legislation does not pass, but either way, Georgetown, and other universities like it, needs to reassess its punishment policy. It is seriously flawed.
David Shick is not the only student who has died recently at the hand of a drunk Hoya. AU student Andrew Burr was killed by a Georgetown alumnus who was driving drunk last year.
Another problem lies in the fact that David Shick's parents could not know the punishment of the student who killed their son because they didn't sign a confidentiality agreement with the University. A student's punishment for minor crimes should remain confidential, but in a situation where someone dies, parents deserve to know that information no matter what.
