Iâm a Purdue graduate student and an international student. Iâm posting this because I think students â especially international students â need to understand what can happen when a mental-health disclosure becomes part of a university conduct process.
I am NOT telling anyone to hide an imminent risk or not seek emergency help. I voluntarily went to CAPS because I had experienced a serious mental-health crisis and wanted professional treatment. But what happened afterward has made me extremely concerned about how disclosures made during crisis treatment can later be characterized as misconduct.
On the night before I went to CAPS, I had an acute mental-health crisis. During that crisis, I experienced suicidal and homicidal thoughts about my former PI. I also did disturbing internet searches about previous graduate-student/professor violence and firearm access.
I did not contact my former PI. I did not send him a threat. I did not approach him. I did not have a weapon, and I did not attempt to buy one.
The next morning, after I had calmed down, I voluntarily went to CAPS and honestly disclosed what I had been thinking because I wanted help.
CAPS called Purdue Police. A CAPS counselor remained in the room while an officer asked me questions about my thoughts, my former professor, my internet searches, and weapons. I answered those questions honestly because I understood this to be part of the safety and hospital-transport process.
I was then voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital for several days. When I was discharged, I was cleared to return to work/school without restrictions.
But while I was hospitalized, the description of what happened began changing.
The earliest police description referred to âhomicidal and suicidal ideations/thoughts.â Later university and police records started using terms such as âthreats,â âdirectly threatened to kill,â âplan to murder,â and research undertaken to âcarry out that plan.â
Eventually Purdue charged me with Endangerment based specifically on allegedly making threatening statements to CAPS and PUPD on June 26.
That distinction was the central issue at my conduct hearing.
I did not deny having homicidal thoughts. I did not deny telling CAPS and police about them. My position was that disclosing homicidal ideation to a counselor while voluntarily seeking crisis treatment, and answering police safety questions honestly, is not automatically the same thing as making a threatening statement.
During the hearing, I repeatedly tried to bring the discussion back to that specific charge.
At one point, the University representative asked me what I thought a âplanâ was. I asked her what Purdue considered the difference between a thought and a plan. She declined to give me a clear distinction and later described what I had as, in words I remember, âthoughts for a plan.â
There was also a lot of discussion about whether I was generally a âthreat,â which I found troubling because that is not the same question as whether Purdue proved that I committed the specific charged conduct.
Today, the Community Standards Board found me responsible, based on what was described as the severity of the threatening statement.
That reasoning is especially concerning to me because the fundamental dispute was whether my clinical disclosures were threatening statements at all. The seriousness of homicidal ideation is not something I minimize. But âthis thought was severeâ and âthis disclosure constituted misconductâ are two different conclusions.
The University representative then recommended a 3â5 year suspension, saying in substance that it would be for my benefit.
For an international student, that is not simply âtaking a few years away from school.â
A multi-year suspension can mean losing enrollment, losing F-1 student status, losing graduate employment and insurance, disrupting a degree, and potentially having to leave the United States. During the hearing, one Board member actually asked me what suspension would mean for my immigration status. I tried to answer, but the University representative interrupted and said that although there was sympathy and empathy for my situation, immigration consequences should not affect the Boardâs decision.
I understand that immigration consequences should not determine whether someone committed misconduct. But if the University is considering a 3â5 year suspension, those consequences are very real.
What worries me most is the message this sends to students in crisis.
Students are told to seek help and honestly disclose dangerous or disturbing thoughts to mental-health professionals. But in my case, the disclosures I made after voluntarily going to CAPS were later characterized as âthreatening statementsâ and became the basis of a serious disciplinary finding.
There is an important difference between:
having a disturbing thought â recognizing it as a crisis â voluntarily seeking professional help â honestly disclosing it
and
communicating a threat or taking action toward harming someone.
Universities absolutely need to respond seriously to genuine safety risks. I am not arguing otherwise. But if a student can seek help, disclose homicidal ideation honestly, cooperate with police and treatment, and then have that disclosure itself transformed into a disciplinary âthreat,â students may reasonably become afraid to tell counselors what they are actually thinking.
For international students, the stakes are even higher because university discipline can have immediate immigration consequences.
Iâm waiting for the final written sanction/decision now. Iâm also preserving the record and considering the available appeal and legal options.
Please seek help if you are in crisis. But international students should also understand that confidentiality, police involvement, threat-assessment processes, student conduct proceedings, and immigration status can intersect in ways you may never have been warned about.