RICHMOND, Va.—Virginia’s public university and community college presidents argue in a state Supreme Court filing that Virginia Tech’s president should have immunity from any civil action stemming from the 2007 massacre on his Blacksburg campus.
The 24 higher education leaders argue that the state’s sovereign immunity should be extended to President Charles Steger, as well as themselves, in a friend-of-the-court brief in an appeal the justices are expected to hear this summer.
The case involves the parents of two students killed in the April 16, 2007, mass shootings who want Steger go on trial for his actions on the day a student gunman went on a rampage and killed 32 students and faculty before killing himself.
The parents won a negligence suit against the state in March 2012, but Steger was excluded from the suit not based on the state’s definition of sovereign immunity but on another legal issue, which is also subject to appeal.
Sovereign immunity in Virginia extends to “high-level governmental officials,” including public high school principals and superintendents. An attorney for the presidents argues that privilege should extend to college and university presidents.
An attorney who filed the amicus brief for the presidents argues that the state’s educational leaders should have that protection “as they exercise supreme administrative control over the various schools, departments and branches of their respective institutions.”
“They oversee thousands of employees, make budget as well as curriculum decisions, and bear ultimate responsibility for the education and well-being of every student enrolled,” Chuck James wrote in the brief filed Monday.
