Douchiest Law School Students Don't Like Douchey Undergrads in the Duke Law Library

There’s a crisis at Duke Law School. No, it’s not that the school fell out of the Top Ten in the U.S. News rankings. It’s that the law library is being invaded by filthy little pests: Duke undergrads.

Duke law students don’t appear to think highly of their young classmates. They seem to blame the undergrads for their supposedly undeserved douchiest law school victory.

The icky BA/BS infestation was a problem last semester as well, leading one Blue Devil to leave a sloppy handwritten sign near the printers: “Print double-sided, a**hole. Also, please use your own library.” Much to law students’ frustration, the policy at the university is that all students are granted access to all libraries.

This semester, the war on trespassing undergrads is better organized. Each morning, Duke J.D. wannabes flyer the library with the sign at right (unredacted version after the jump), and one infuriated 2L created a Facebook protest group — It’s still the LAW library (even during finals). The Duke Law School administration has taken note of the problem, and responded — appropriately, via posting to the wall of the Facebook group.

But the war does not look good for Duke Law School. The troops are in retreat, and they appear to be fleeing to the Duke business school library…

According to a student who wrote on the wall of the Facebook protest group, today is “Ask an Undergrad to Leave the Library Day.” How did it come to this?

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From the Facebook group description:

Greetings from the FUQUA [Ed. note: Duke’s business school] library!! …

I just left the law school library because my friends and I could not find a table in the main area of the library where we would be able to work together. It was packed…with undergrads. In a room full of, say, 60 people (just the main table area) I literally saw perhaps 10 that I recognized as law students. Humorously, as I look around the Fuqua library it’s about 30% law students. Clearly others have been driven from the law library as well.

It doesn’t look like Duke MBA students have formed a protest group against the law students. Yet.

The organizer claims to have seen “a group of NINE undergrads walk in at once,” undergrads bringing their parents on tours to show them “where we come to study for finals,” and undergrad cars jamming up the law library parking lot.

[W]hen my friends and I can’t prepare for our securities regulation exam anywhere in the “talking” areas of the library because kids have organic chemistry, macroeconomics, eastern religion, and underwater basket-weaving textbooks strewn around every available space, things have gone too far…

It may sound snobby or entitled to put it this way, but the fact of the matter is, we GOT INTO LAW SCHOOL, thereby earning the privilege of using the library space therein; not to mention the roughly $60,000 of debt we’re taking on each year, which in large part finances the nice new library we have.

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We do note that the group’s creator went to UNC undergrad, so he may have a double motive in smearing the Blue Devil coeds. A double Dukie chimed in to defend the undergrads of years past and to malign the current crop:

As a former annoying Duke undergraduate myself, I’d like to point out that these ugrads are especially huge douchebags. Not once in my four years did I have to go to the law library for lack of study space on campus. There are three undergrad libraries, not to mention dozens of academic buildings, in which these little shits can “study.” It really has gotten out of control.

(When I was an undergrad, I too never invaded the law library — I preferred studying in the West-Edens Link.)

Apparently, Facebook groups are not entirely futile enterprises. The virtual equivalent of a sit-in protest can actually capture the attention of higher authorities. The assistant dean for student affairs Jason Belk (whose Facebook profile photo is adorable — he is being hugged by his mother) wrote on the wall this afternoon:

It appears that some undergraduates are not being as respectful of the Law Library as they could be. We are looking into, perhaps, restricting access to the Law School Library to Law Student during finals in the fall. I am really sorry about the inconvenience. Good luck on your remaining finals!

We echo that. Good luck on finals to law school students at Duke and elsewhere.

And Dukies, seek solace in the fact that you’ll be making a lot more than those undergrads when you graduate. Or at least that you’re more likely to have a job, if that 100% employed-upon-graduation statistic is to be believed.

It’s still the LAW Library (even during finals) [Facebook]