Another Perspective on the IU Incident
We recently posted about a controversy at the Indiana University School of Law, in Bloomington. A law student at IU alleged that a fellow student punched her in the face and broke her nose.
Not surprisingly, the post unleashed an avalanche of reader responses. Some questioned the accuser's account of events, while others defended her. You can review the comments, including some by the accuser, by clicking here. (We think this comment does a good job of summarizing the conflicting theories.)
In the interest of providing balanced coverage, since we previously posted the accuser's side of the story, we now offer another take on the incident. Some of these observations surfaced in the comments to the earlier post; but we realize that many of you may not have read through all the comments, which were voluminous.
These points are paraphrased from an email we received:
1. The accused student didn't "punch" the complainant. He playfully touched her face during a drinking game. But because she has an especially fragile bone structure, her nose was broken by this contact.
(We are reminded of the proverbial "eggshell plaintiff" from Torts class.)
2. The comments and quotes by the accused, which may sound callous if viewed in a vacuum, were his own way of refuting false accusations. He's the kind of guy who would respond to such allegations by being inflammatory -- to show how, in his view, the allegations are ridiculous and baseless.3. The accused student is one of the more good-natured and intelligent students at this school. It would be a pity for something like this to possibly ruin his career.
We feel we have now given airtime to both sides. And we hear, both from sources at the school and from the accuser's blog, that the drama is now dying down. But if you have thoughts on this incident, feel free to share them in the comments.
Update: We won't stoke the fires further with yet another post about this controversy. But for the record, please note the accuser's comments on this post (here and here), as well as this post on her own blog.
Earlier: Midwestern Law Students: Not So Nice After All?
(20) Comments
I finally have a better shot of getting a Biglaw job than someone else here. Thanks Dizzy! Your victim-mentality and immature way of handling conflicts loses the tie-breaker between your resume and mine!
Argument in support of the conclusion "never hire an Indiana Law-Bloomington grad"
P1: Accused "is one of the more good-natured and intelligent students at this school."
P2: Accused is "the kind of guy who would respond to such allegations by being inflammatory -- to show how, in his view, the allegations are ridiculous and baseless."
P3: Anyone who believes that a good way to show allegations are "ridiculous" is to be "inflammatory" is stupid.
P4: Accused, who is stupid, is "one of the more intelligent" students of this law school.
P5: IU-B students must be very stupid indeed if this guy is one of the smarter ones.
Q.E.D.
Your desire to make this into a referendum on the school betrays your own insecurities and tendency to irrational generalization.
Neither of the parties in this imaginary tort suit are representative of the people of IU.
This must be a slow news day.
Actually, Mr. Name, it is your ad hominem arguments that are irrational. Making unsupported statements about my purported insecurities and goals and implying that they invalidate my argument --likewise.
Where, pray tell, is the error in my reasoning? BTW, all the premises are drawn from statements made by someone who claims to be an IU-B law student, so consider these premises granted. Accordingly, an error in the reasoning is the only way to reject the conclusion. So far, you have failed to do so.
Then again, if you had a better grasp of logic, you would have done better on the LSAT and wouldn't have ended up at IU-B, so I had best stop taunting you now. No law school could make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
oh snap
Actually, it was grades in my engineering program and not LSAT that kept me out of schools where I might get to attend classes with people like you. I fixed the grade thing in law school though. Maybe we will be coworkers. You sound like a nice person.
Oh wait, you were trying to reason! I'm sorry, that means you already know you can't manage "nice." My bad. Reason away, o faithful law-man!
save it, dude. you got uber-pwned.
Julio,
The flaw in your arguement is that you take the opinion of one student as a fact. Your argument should run as follows:
P1: One IU-B law student believes accused "is one of the more good-natured and intelligent students at this school."
P2: Accused is "the kind of guy who would respond to such allegations by being inflammatory -- to show how, in his view, the allegations are ridiculous and baseless."
P3: Anyone who believes that a good way to show allegations are "ridiculous" is to be "inflammatory" is stupid
P4: Accused, who is stupid, is perceived by one IU-B student as "one of the more intelligent" students of this law school.
P5: One IU-B law student must be very stupid indeed if s/he thinks the accused in one of the smarter ones.
I am NOT an "eggshell" plaintiff. My nose does break more easily than most. But last time, it took a softball to the face to do it.
And the "playful" game was, "Hit her in the face because she said NOT TO." He knew about the car accident. He knew about the softball. He didn't believe me when I said it would break. THAT was what made it "funny" to him.
I appreciate trying to put his side out there. Since he didn't do a very good job of explaining himself in the blog. Or his "I hit her with a Tec-9" facebook note.
But the summary posted came from the comments in my blog. And it included a misquote (about the game). So it isn't, actually, even another side. It's just what was already out there.
And I have No. Idea. Where anyone came up with the word "tapped," to describe how he managed to break my nose in TWO PLACES.
I would like to take up the statements of Julio:
P1: Accused "is one of the more good-natured and intelligent students at this school."
I don't know anyone who would call him one of the more good-natured, he's sarcastic and often mean in the name of comedy. He's funny too, but not good-natured.
As for his intelligence, I don't know how empirically intelligent he is, however;
1. He got one of the best grades in the class in torts when we were 1Ls, yet was not in the top of the class.
2. He got a "big-law" job over the summer and systematically ostracized and insulted his bosses and co-workers to the point they asked him to end his time there early and did not offer him a job for this summer.
3. He was on law journal but did not complete his duties to the journal's satisfaction and has basically been kicked off at this point.
3a) He didn't finish his cite-checking assignments on time, and had to re-do at least one assignment.
3b) He did not write his note with the requisite "good faith effort."
Lastly, I would simply like to express my dismay and displeasure that this person has become a "representative" of my class. He is far and away the most immature, the heaviest drinker and the person with the single largest sense of entitlement. (The stories could go on, but this comment is already quite lengthy.
As has been said many times since this controversy began, there are many fantastic people here and the fact that one person's actions have cast this negative a light on the school is a terrible shame.
There are a number of fantastic people here. But I think that since the school isn't going to do anything, then it does cast the entire school in a negative light. If the school had issued a statement, even interviewed witnesses before deciding this was no big deal, I could see their side.
As it stands. I don't. That doesn't mean they don't have a side. Just that they haven't taken any opportunity to present it.
I actually agree that this casts the school in a negative light. What I don't get is why people are blaming you for going public rather than Steve for breaking your nose or the school for not doing anything.
It's like we've gone back to shooting the messenger rather than listening to the message.
I know I'm in the vanishingly small minority here, but I'm actually glad this all came out. It highlights a real problem here even if, despite that highlighting, people seem eager to continue ignoring that problem. Sure, maybe the "drama" would have died down earlier if you hadn't written to Salon, but it also would have been a disservice to let it die that quickly.
What happened was serious, and just because Steve doesn't want it to be, or the school wants to pretend there are no problems here doesn't make any of that true.
I'm just sorry that nothing more serious is going to happen and that the school doesn't have the balls to stand up to a student bully.
Julio wrote:
"Then again, if you had a better grasp of logic, you would have done better on the LSAT and wouldn't have ended up at IU-B, so I had best stop taunting you now."
You know what, Julio? I wil gladly make an ad-hominem attack on you. And be ultimately justified in doing so.
Anyone that refers, either directly or tangentially to their getting in to a "better" law school (which strengthens your argument how, exactly?) has proven only 1.) that they were lucky enough to get what, 2-3 more correct answers on the LSAT, (I mean really, our average is 91st percentile so please have some perspective), 2.) that they buy into the US News more than they ought to, and 3.) their "superior" school has taught them very little about argument if they need to refer to their "rank" or imply that their attendance at a "top" school (which any admissions counselor will tell you involves a lot of luck considering the THOUSANDS OF APPLICATIONS for 200 spots at every single school in the top 50) matters in order to make their "point".
Simply put, don't make/use the "good" part of the ad hominem game and then try to pull that sophist BS you called a post.
Argument in support of the conclusion "always hire an Indiana Law-Bloomington grad"
P1: All Indiana Law Bloomington Grads are 10+ feet tall.
P2: If not all law school graduates 10+ feet get super-cool law jobs, then the freakin' universe will implode.
PS: Unless you want the universe to implode (which trust me, is totally bad) you must hire an IUB grad.
Q.E.D.
Julio, I'm gonna tell you something that you're either quite accustom to, or something you need to get accustom to because you’re gonna hear it a lot in the future: you’re a freakin’ idiot.
See, sporto, an argument is only as good as its premises. The rub is that your premises…uh…suck. This point has already been made, but others were taking you way too seriously when they made it.
I think it’s really cute that you were able to demonstrate your superior reasoning skills, what with the syllogism laid out nicely and all. For a second I was like, “ Did Aristotle rise from the grave? And what’s more, why does he read ATL?” Plus, with the whole “Q.E.D” thing I thought maybe you were some math whiz that decided to give us law school idiots a lesson.
But then I thought about what you said for maybe, say, a nanosecond, at which point I concluded that you really are a freakin’ idiot. Clearly, with all the style that you presented in your post you must have at least audited a logic or critical thinking class. Were you absent on the day of the “don’t believe everything on the internets” lecture?
Or maybe you should? Here’s a website I think you ought to check out: http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/.
I just worry that maybe you’ll get lost in some sort of deep thinking while taking a walk, and because of your understandable distraction, literally drop off the face of the earth.
I didn't even go to IU and I concur that Julio is indeed an idiot.
Dizzy/Vosburg,
I don't understand why it would be the school's responsibility to do anything. If you have a problem with someone "breaking" your nose, there are more appropiate avenues to take.
The "more appropriate avenues" could have ended his career - when he was already two years in and $60,000 in debt. And I thought the school could help him avoid something as sad as http://this by intervening early or at least checking on the situation. I thought they should have the chance to try, and to see what they were graduating.
Here's the link to a story about one of last year's graduates: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070507/LOCAL/70507002