After months of debate, faculty senators finally passed a policy on Monday that establishes a code for reporting threatening behavior, and allows for punishment as severe as expulsion for students who make threats.

Less than a month before the anniversary of the triple-murder suicide at the College of Nursing, the policy comes as a welcome safeguard for faculty and staff, many of who say they have been threat victims.

And it's hard to argue about the policy's value. Robert S. Flores Jr., the disgruntled former student who shot three nursing professors and then turned the gun on himself, had exhibited threatening behavior long before he committed the most heinous act of violence in UA history.

No disciplinary or corrective action was ever taken toward Flores, probably in part because clear procedures for dealing with behavior like his hadn't been outlined.

The rules for reporting and punishing threatening behavior will work in concert with another proposed policy, which calls for documentation of disruptive student behavior to be consolidated in the Dean of Students Office.

That too will have tangible benefits. Identifying problem students, perhaps even the next Flores, will become much easier with a centralized record of threats.

So, on the one hand, the UA's stepped-up efforts to deal with threats should make the campus a safer place.

But, on the other hand, they could potentially create an environment in which statements are twisted and threats are inferred when none were made. They could put in place the means for faculty or staff to unfairly retaliate against students they simply don't like.

Let's be clear ÷ there hasn't been a rash of this type of incident. But it would be naive to expect that the situation will never arise.

Despite the drastic circumstances that prompted this policy, everybody facing punishment for making threats should be afforded due process.

The new policy is being put in place for the protection of the UA community. If it's applied appropriately and not taken to extremes, it should do just that.

Opinions are determined by the Wildcat opinions board and written by one of its members. They are Shane Dale, Kristina Dunham, Brett Fera, Caitlin Hall and Jeff Sklar.