Michael Berdan ‘22
Opinions Editor
This past December, during the final exam period, I was issued a fifty-five dollar parking citation for parking my beloved Volkswagen Beetle in the lot outside Slaughter Hall. I was surprised by this, since I had been told by my Peer Advisors and other classmates that parking was not enforced once classes ended, as demand for parking drops dramatically. This meshed with my experience on that day, since my car was one of only a handful in a lot that boasts well over 100 spaces.
So, like any enterprising millennial, I took to the Class of ’22 GroupMe. I found that several other students had been similarly ticketed, having relied on the same information. A poll I submitted found that nearly seventy percent of the respondents were under the same impression as I was: namely, that there was open parking once classes ended. I shared this information with UVA’s Department of Parking and Transportation (DP&T), and they simply said that because the faulty information was not supplied by their office, but rather word of mouth, it wasn’t grounds for appeal. A 2L in the GroupMe who had been ticketed then proposed that we talk to Dean Davies, noting that “if anyone will go to bat for us, it’s her.”
Unfortunately, Dean Davies echoed the position of DP&T, seeming surprised that I or anyone else would have such an idea, and suggested that I “purchase daily parking” and “pass on to people who have not reviewed the parking rules that their understanding of the rules [is] incorrect.” I suggested that since this misconception appeared to have been held by a strong majority of the student body and was passed on to many of us by our Law-School-assigned Peer Advisors, perhaps the Law School could ask DP&T to waive these tickets as a professional courtesy, allowing admin to correct the misinformation. Dean Davies declined to do so.
I eventually won the appeal of my parking ticket because my wonderful peer advisor, Sam Thoma ’21, wrote to DP&T, telling them that she and many other PAs passed this information on to me, as well as many, many other students. I asked DP&T to similarly overturn the fines imposed on all my peers who were ticketed during finals season because of this widespread misinformation from a fairly official source. They declined to do so.
This got me wondering about parking enforcement at UVA Law. How much money does the university generate by ticketing its students? When are we most often ticketed? Are more or fewer tickets issued during finals periods? Many students report parking in the lots during previous semesters without a problem. Do the numbers bear that out? So I used the Freedom of Information Act to get that information.
In response to my FOIA request, I received a breakdown of every citation issued in the lots surrounding the Law School during 2018, 2019, and 2020. Here is some of what I’ve learned. Anyone who wants the raw data can email me for it.
- Each license plate gets a warning first, then a $55 ticket for the second infraction, and, it appears, a $250 ticket for the third infraction. Seven $250 tickets were issued during the 2018-2020 period.
- A total of 1,508 citations were issued, totalling $34,140.00 in fines.
- This equates to roughly $60 a day for the Law School.
- Roughly 2.4 citations were issued per school day, on average.
- There were no citations issued during the finals periods of Spring 2018 or Spring 2020.
- Roughly 3.8 citations were issued per day during the finals periods in which they did enforce parking. In Fall 2020’s finals period, five citations per day were issued.
- Citations were issued on the first day of school, the last day of school, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and during Thanksgiving week.
- Several citations were issued after the posted end of enforcement at 5 p.m., including some in October and December of this year, and six citations in a row after 5 p.m. on May 9, 2019.
I do not claim this is a “smoking gun.” It doesn’t show malfeasance or corruption, or that DP&T is deliberately creating ambiguity in order to target us during finals weeks (though the very irregular enforcement during finals has created an atmosphere that is fecund for misinformation). However, the data does provoke a question I’ve been struggling with for some time, and that is “What would it look like for the Law School to be truly, fully devoted to its students?”
It certainly would not look like issuing expensive citations to students for parking in nearly-empty parking lots outside the school they are paying $70,000 per year to attend. It may look like issuing a parking-days allotment, as is done with printing. It may look like allowing students to purchase a reserved spot, and to share it with their classmates as they wish. But these solutions—or any others—are unlikely to happen without a shift in mindset to what I call the Student-Centered Law School, one in which student success and wellbeing are the ultimate ends sought by every single decision.
The Student-Centered Law School would see when policy will result in an untenable result, and refuse to let that happen. It would not, for example, force the withdrawal of a student called up by the National Guard. It would present students with options and autonomy for how they want to attend and engage in class, how they want to demonstrate their mastery of the material, and how they want to be evaluated. It would allow students to withdraw from courses or take leave for personal reasons without having to plead their case before administrative strangers. It would unceasingly seek opportunities to serve and support and stand with students, first and above all. It would allow students a space—in the parking lot, in the classroom, and in the community—where they can thrive.
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mwb4pk@virginia.edu