Email Scandals, Law Professors, Law Schools

Student Rats Out Professor, Then Flips Off Rest of Class

Some people will say that today's stupid law student email of the day comes from a rat. A snitch. A person who betrayed the trust of his fellow classmates. Others will say it comes from a whistleblower. A person of conscience. A student who saw a wrong being committed and decided to speak up. Either way, it comes from a person who needed to take a break, a nap, a siesta, before rattling off an email to his entire class....

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Sometimes I wonder why law schools don’t institute mandatory nap times. Sometimes law students just need to take a little break — a little “time-out” before proceeding with their day.

Some people will say that today’s stupid law student email of the day comes from a rat. A snitch. A person who betrayed the trust of his fellow classmates.

Others will say it comes from a whistleblower. A person of conscience. A student who saw a wrong being committed and decided to speak up.

Either way, it comes from a person who needed to take a break, a nap, a siesta, before rattling off an email to his entire class….

Here’s the backstory, as told to us by a tipster at the USC Gould School of Law:

So a professor was lectured by the university and was told that he had to change the way he was teaching the class because some of the material was “offensive.”

Some students were not happy and sent out emails to the class about how it was ridiculous that someone complained about the beloved professor who is an amazing professor.

This was an email sent out by a student in the class as a response. Apparently he had complained to the university.

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We understand the professor to be Doug Levinson. I haven’t seen the allegedly offensive material, but chances are it wouldn’t have bothered me.

And nobody likes a tattletale.

In any event, we don’t know if the student who sent this email is the person who actually outed the USC professor, or if he is just a sympathizer. It does seem like the kid went off his meds, though. All caps are in the original — and since I had to say that, you know things are about to get INTENSE.

UPDATE (12:30 PM): Some of you in the comments are having some reading comprehension problems. As we understand it, based on our tipsters, this email is NOT in support of the professor. I know the first lines seem to suggest that he is in support of the professor. As we understand it — from sources at the law school, who know the parties involved — the author of this email is employing the literary device of SARCASM (i.e., the email writer does not view complaining about the professor as problematic, and thinks it is ridiculous that some people do).

TO THE PERSON WHO BETRAYED THE SANCTITY OF OUR CLASSROOM: HAVE YOU NO SHAME? I HONESTLY HOPE THAT YOU ARE CAPTURED BY TERRORISTS AND THAT THE RANSOM VIDEO IS LOST IN THE MAIL! AND NOBODY EVER FINDS YOU! I HOPE THAT WHEN YOU GO ON YOUR NEXT JOB INTERVIEW, AN AIDS-INFESTED BABOON TAKES A SHIT ON YOUR CHEST! I HOPE YOUR FAMILY’S GAS GETS SHUT OFF!!1!!! I HOPE THE ASTEROID THAT PASSED EARTH YESTERDAY MAKES A FUCKING U-TURN AND TAKES A COSMIC SHIT ALL OVER YOUR HOUSE!! NEXT TIME YOU HAVE INDIAN FOOD, I HOPE IT GIVES YOU DIARRHEA!!!! YOU MAKE ME FUCKING SUCK!!! YOU HAVE TAKEN A SHIT ON PROF. LEVINSON AND DIARREAHED ALL OVER THIS UNIVERSITY!!! SHAME!!!!!!!! SHAME!!!!!!! LOUD NOISES!!!!!!!!

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If USC did make a professor change it up based on the complaints of one clearly unbalanced student, that would be sad. Not “I hope USC administrators get AIDS” sad, but you just hope USC had more than one student’s complaint to go on.

In the meantime, the rest of the USC Law students in this class are learning an important lesson about life: beware the turd in the punch bowl. Seriously, how many laws have been written just to deal with the one guy who doesn’t want to play ball and be reasonable?

If USC Law were more like kindergarten, this kid would be sitting by himself at lunchtime.

UPDATE (1:20 PM): Another USC tipster offered these opinions on the intense emailer:

Here’s more details on the psycho USC law student. He was indeed the one that complained to the school. Most students see him as a joke that was only let in because his family donated big bucks to the school.

Also, he messed up when sending his psychotic email and accidentally sent it to about 200 students who were not enrolled in class he was complaining about. Smart guy.

UPDATE (11:20 PM): A third source sent us this exhaustive defense of the intense emailer (claiming that the emailer was not the original person who complained about the prof):

The student who wrote the sarcastic email (which yes is in bad taste) was NOT the original student who complained to the administration. That student has yet to come forward. However, the student who sent the sarcastic email felt that the reaction of the class was inappropriate and that the student who complained followed the correct channels.

Mr. Sarcasm (if you will) tends run to the aid of the little guy. He spent time before law school volunteering in low income neighborhoods in Mississippi and is very active in PILF. While his sarcasm and humor were not appropriately applied to the situation, he has been lampooned by other members of our school for something he didn’t actually do. It’s easy to assume he was the original student when his defense of that student’s actions were so strong, but he simply wasn’t.

The attempt to claim that he got into the school or receives special treatment is absolutely ridiculous. He is an extremely intelligent person and while his personality may not be to everyone’s taste he truly cares about injustices, which is what he viewed to have occurred surrounding the student complaint. He just didn’t want to see anyone get bullied. He has worked really hard to make sure that he did not benefit from his family connections, and his LSAT/GPA were well within and above USC’s range. He absolutely deserves to be there on his own merits and to insinuate otherwise or that he is trying to get special treatment smells more of jealousy and immaturity rather than reality. People’s personal attacks on him are childish and below the standard I thought my classmates would hold themselves to; they were upset that someone got in the way of their easy A class.

Additionally, the sarcastic email was not the one that was sent to the wrong set of students; it was a follow-up pointing out to his classmates that the email was written sarcastically and seriously questioning their judgment for jumping all over whomever did complain about the professor. The mix up occurred when using our Blackboard website as the class with Levinson was Business for Lawyers and the class that mistakenly received the email was Business Organizations. When he sent the email he simply clicked on the wrong class because within the system they look very similar.

If anything can you please just clear up the fact that he was not defending himself but rather was defending a fellow classmate he viewed as being bullied.

For the record, the whole situation may differ in some respects from the scenario originally described to us. We are now hearing reports, for example, that there might not have been an original “tattletale.”

We will bring you a more complete report — synthesizing the different viewpoints, and providing additional emails from the chain — at a later date (perhaps after the long weekend). Happy Thanksgiving!

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