From The Washington Post: An administrative judge at the U.S. Department of Education has overturned a $55,000 fine the department imposed against Virginia Tech in connection with a 2007 shooting rampage that left 33 dead. The department had issued the fine after deciding that the university had not adequately warned students once the violence erupted. But Judge Ernest C. Canellos ruled that Virginia Tech did issue a timely warning to the Blacksburg campus community by sending out an e-mail two hours after the first two victims were shot in a residence hall. The shooter, student Seung Hui Cho, subsequently turned up on campus at Norris Hall, where he killed an additional 30 people before committing suicide.
EARLIER....
APRIL 2001... From
The Washington Post:
Virginia Tech will appeal a $55,000 fine imposed by the federal government for the school’s handling of the 2007 shooting rampage that left more than 30 students and teachers dead, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II says. Cuccinelli called the federal action “appalling” and the Education Department’s four-year investigation of the events “shoddy at best.”
MARCH 2011....from The Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia Tech will be fined $55,000 — the maximum amount allowable —
for federal violations in how the university handled the 2007 shooting rampage on the Blacksburg campus that left 33 dead. The school says it will appeal the fines, arguing that its actions the morning of April 16, 2007, "were well within the standards and practices in effect at that time." The university was found in violation of the Clery Act for waiting two hours and 15 minutes to issue a warning after the first two students were slain. About 2½ hours after those shootings, senior Seung-Hui Cho killed 30 other students and professors in a classroom building before shooting himself.
MAY 2010....From
The Washington Post:
Virginia Techfailed to comply with a federal law that requires timely warning of safety threats to the campus community after Seung Hui Cho's deadly shooting spree began in April 2007, according to a preliminary review by the U.S. Education Department. Virginia Tech vigorously disputed that conclusion as it released the preliminary review and a long, point-by-point response.
Read the report and Virginia Tech's response. (PDF file)
