I think of all aspects of this story, the part about someone being taken to a mental hospital under police escort without a court order or the like, simply because someone didn't like what they read bugs me the most. What if you dared write that you think that homosexuals should be forbidden from their sinful relationships? Could you be hauled off to the hospital for an involuntary commitment? That aspect of it should result in a pretty good lawsuit - and I'm not a big fan of lawsuits.
If the university wanted to expel him, I think they got every right to. But there is a long road between separation of free association to holding someone against their will and subjecting them to the whims of a psych exam.
Again, the news article leaves out WHY the kid was expelled. It dances around the issue and quite frankly I’m a little skeptical that it was solely due to his class assignment.
The mental evaluation they gave him showed that he did not have a mental illness or was a danger to himself or others, which is why they released him. The expulsion seems to be over the guns but it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to work the essay into the reason to expel him, but like I said in my original post, the blanket gun ban at UVA wise seems to be illegal and is unconstitutional in the opinion of Virginia’s attorney general, so the school policy should be changed.