When Does Provocative Student Expression Become Too Threatening?

By LAWRENCE WHITE

On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech, murdered 32 students and faculty members in two separate shooting rampages on the campus, then killed himself. In a report on the shootings prepared for the Commonwealth of Virginia by a gubernatorial review panel, a resident adviser in Cho's dormitory told investigators she knew "there were issues" with Cho because of violent song lyrics he had posted on his Facebook page before the murders.

Just a few days