Judgement in VA

18 June 08

Message from the Court, from an Instructor and Attorney:

"In the wake of yesterday's multi-million dollar judgement in the VA Tech shooting case, the court has sent a clear message to all institutions:

The main thing the school 'did wrong' was to fail to panic quickly nor frantically enough, as the primary basis for plaintiffs' damage claims was that the university did not issue a sufficiently frenzied warning of an ' active-shooter,' nor did it 'lock-down' campus areas speedily enough. How either of those actions would have altered the outcome is, as always, lost on those in lawyer-dom.

The other message is that dollars that flow to families of the dead will adequately make up for the slaughter.

As for allowing, indeed encouraging, students and staff to go armed, and take other unilateral actions to look after themselves, of course, anathema to all right-thinking eggheads."

Comment: Panic and Three-Stooges-style dithering are now considered virtues in academia and lawyer-dom. Self-reliance is, naturally, unthinkable. Imagine that!

/John