Law Schools

Law Professors Get Drawn Into Twitter Nerd Fight

If you're going to make legal threats, you should at least know the law.

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Is there anything quite so stereotypically nerdy as Magic: The Gathering? Okay, maybe Dungeons & Dragons, but it still ranks pretty high on the list. So when a public argument starts a-brewin’ between players, you know it’ll be a +2 on the unintentional hilarity scale.

When @wizards_magic (the official account for Magic: The Gathering) allegedly threatened to ban Twitter user @mtglion, a Twitter beef for the ages developed. Details about what exactly happened to warrant dispatching him like he’s Polukranos the World Eater are sketchy, though I am sure it involved a standard amount of internet foolishness. But like any good player, @mtglion wasn’t about to take this banishment spell lying down. No, no. @Mtglion purports to be a law student, so naturally they called upon the spirits of law professors to strike fear in the heart of @wizard_magic.

Ooooo. Look out! @Mtglion won’t be happy. Unless @mtglion is an actual wizard that… isn’t a real consequence.

And yes, obviously Twitter pretty much *immediately* caught @mtglion’s mistake about intermediate scrutiny.

There’s a lot of speculation about whether @mtglion is or ever was really a law student. It’d be weird to just pull these two law professors’ names out to make some convoluted point on Twitter. But it also seems unlikely @mtglion is really an esquire — lawyers are usually better at threats than “I wrote a paper once, so look out!”

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William Van Alstyne and Timothy Zick are indeed law professors. Van Alstyne is a professor emeritus at Duke Law School and also teaches at William & Mary, and Zick is a professor at William & Mary Law School.

While one might imagine them somewhat flattered to be thrown around as the ultimate authorities in a juvenile Twitter beef, they can’t be psyched @mtglion missed the lack of a state actor in this fact pattern. That’s like the first element of a First Amendment violation, and @mtglion just glossed right the hell over it and charged straight into indignation like Leeroy Jenkins.

Perhaps @mtglion should take a break from Magic: The Gathering to actually go to class.

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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