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?
