Students v. Over-Eager Administration
396 U.Va. 75 (2020)
Pickett, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Luk, Calamaro, Deskins, Luévano, Jones, JJ. join.
I
Despite UVA Law’s reputation for being the most relaxed of the so-called “T14 Law Schools,” there remain some who seek to stoke students’ law school-induced anxiety, no matter the time of year. Given the insistence of the administration in disturbing students’ substantive due process right to privacy during Winter Break, the Court will restore order by condemning their actions and defining when and how students may be contacted during breaks from school.
II
On January 6, 2020, plaintiff Lay Z. Boi woke up at 2:00 p.m., excited for another day of doing absolutely nothing and trying to pretend he had never made the questionable decision to attend law school. And yet, as he rolled over to check his phone, he saw the familiar e-mail notification entitled “Daily Docket.” This edition showed one of Boi’s classmates, Johnny Bravo, smiling on the cover, touting his most recent success and attributing it to “not sleeping until 2:00 p.m.” Boi felt as seen as a lady of the house who had decided to take a bath that night, the heat of which was detectable with an infrared heat sensor.[1]
Boi had had enough. Despite his attempts to forget the trauma of fall semester, the Daily Docket reminded him every single weekday that he was a law student and that, as he attempted to rest, there were those who would never stop. He decided that his reasonable expectation of privacy in having an unbothered Winter Break had been violated, so he filed suit in the Court of Petty Appeals.
III
The right to privacy during Winter Break provides that students shall be contacted during Winter Break only if a grade has been posted to SIS (which rarely happens), or if they have become enrolled in a class whose waitlist they were on. The right strictly prohibits the administration from harassing students with emails, particularly those which tout the success of others and seem to scorn students who prefer to spend their breaks curled up with hot chocolate and a movie. The right is particularly unforgiving of emails containing information that is neither relevant nor necessary.
The right to privacy during Winter Break is as old as Common Knowledge itself, and it is a right that can be found in the penumbra of our Constitution’s most important amendments—III and IV. The Third Amendment prevents soldiers from being quartered in American homes, just as this right to privacy prevents emails from the administration from being quartered in the email inboxes of innocent students around the country. And the Fourth Amendment’s protection of people in their persons and effects means that no one should be attacked in their own home by the vicious cyberbullying implicit in the Daily Docket. The right was first articulated, however, in the case of A Few Good Men v. A Few Good Women, 265 U.Va. 12, 97 (2015), where the Court found that Winter Break is discrete and insular time period, which should only be trespassed upon if there is a compelling administrative interest. It has since been refined to a set of rules defining when students may be contacted. Students v. UVA Alerts, 365 U. Va. 15, 25 (2016), recognized the reluctant rule that UVA may contact students in the event of an emergency, though it did remand to lower courts for a determination of how many emails the administration was allowed to send in a span of five minutes.[2] Finally, the most recent case of Young Robert DeNiro in “The Irishman” vs. Old Robert DeNiro in “The Irishman,” 188 Scorsese 30, 45 (2019), established the exception that “students may receive emails about grades and classes, but they should find out such information within a reasonable amount of time and not after four weeks of anxiety induced waiting.”
The administration’s actions were clearly in violation of the right to privacy during Winter Break. The Daily Docket does not inform students of emergencies, nor does it provide information about grades or classes. It is an essential and useful tool during the school year, but a tragic reminder of students’ law school demons during the sainted period of Winter Break.
IV
We hold in favor of the plaintiff and award emotional damages in the form of another week off of school for Boi and the rest of the Law School. By “excluding” a week of school, we help make Boi and his classmates whole after their privacy was so forcibly trespassed upon by the tyranny of authority.
Schmid, J., concurring.
I am in agreement with the majority, and Judge Sam “Sam’s Club”[3] Pickett in their rejection of the bombardment of students’ inboxes with Daily Docket emails, as well as its proper reverence for the continued vitality of the Third Amendment. I write separately to exercise my right as a
Petty Judge of this Petty Court to grouse about whatever I want. This concurrence is aimed squarely at the University’s use of UVA Alerts. In theory, the UVA Alerts are an important and necessary tool to communicate urgent news to the University community. In reality, well…. Let’s just say many alerts are reminiscent of that last paragraph you write when you’re running out of time on a four-hour final exam and you just let the words flow onto the page in whatever haphazard way they tumble out of your brain. What follows are some of the greatest hits of the UVA Alerts.
(1) A recent alert warned us, “Battle Building reported in area of AVOID the area.” (2) Late last July, while 1Ls were consumed with OGI stress,[4] we were comforted in the assurance that “the incident,” whatever it may be, “in area of Fontaine Ave. has been cleared.” (3) Last spring, an email was dispatched alerting us that “Bice House reported in area of .” (4) To my knowledge, at least two recent alerts were entirely blank. (5) Lastly, who can forget when the UVA community was on the lookout for a suspect with the following characteristics unknown: age, eye color, hair color, height, race, sex, and weight.
It is regrettably true that I have no control over the UVA Alert system. However, I am a firm believer in the power of the Court of Petty Appeals and its members to indirectly effect change through publication, one petty rant at a time.
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shp8dz@virginia.edu
ms3ru@virginia.edu
[1] Shout out to Criminal Investigations for this joke.
[2] The limit was one, which the University has repeatedly ignored.
[3] A nickname I have stolen from our beloved newspaper tyrant, Chief Justice Shmazzle.
[4] Don’t worry, current 1Ls, it’s going to be great! See, e.g., Class of 2019 v. 2016-2017 Peer Advisors, 329 U.Va. 1 (2019) (collecting comforting lies told by PAs and other 2Ls and 3Ls about the first year of law school).