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Legal experts say it's still unclear whether colleges can be held liable for failing to help students like Anita Rutnam. A key issue is whether school administrations are expected to act in loco parentis. Unlike a parent-child relationship, "there is no special relationship between university officials and a student that imposes duty [to protect students]," contends Jerry Meek, a Dallas-based malpractice lawyer. Without proving that such a duty to students exists, it will be difficult for any plaintiff to claim successfully that it was breached.
But for Susan Klein, Brown's responsibility to her son was unequivocal. "When you send your kid off to college, you say, 'You're on your own,'" says Klein, an education professor at Indiana University. "But when a student cries out, there should be a set of mechanisms whereby the right people learn about it." Others point out that parents must play a role too--by checking out a college's psychological services in advance and by not putting too much pressure on kids. Says Ed Hu, college counselor at Harvard-Westlake, a Los Angeles prep school: "They're just pushing their kids, causing the stress, not aware of the toll."
In the end, students must realize they need help and seek it out. "There are so many services that are here for us," says Celine Goetz, a Columbia sophomore, "but you have to come to them." Yet even in the age of Prozac, schools are discovering that some students need to be met more than halfway.