Quiet Studiers v. Noisome Zoomers
73 U.Va 6 (2020)
Justice CHENELLE delivered the opinion of the Court.
Questions over the proper usage of the Law Library have come to the forefront of both public opinion and this Court. Plaintiff brought suit seeking an injunction against the misuse of the Law Library for online classes. Applying the Proper Use Doctrine, the Court of Petty Appeals finds that a judicial order precluding the usage of the Law Library for Zoom classes is appropriate.
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A spectre is haunting the Law School—the spectre of noise in the library. Across the carrels, over the stacks, and through the halls, one can hear the petulant greetings, questions, and cold-call responses of those poor souls so extremely depraved that they see no mortal sin in conducting their online classes—and with sound!—from the rightfully silent halls of the Arthur J. Morris Law Library. This act is an outrage against the natural order. It is thus with the hope of impugning this atrocious behavior and shaming the malefactors who perpetuate these woeful deeds that I write this opinion. After it is published in the illustrious pages of the Virginia Law Weekly, none shall dare to speak on a Zoom call in the library ever again, at peril of raising this Court’s ire and violating the injunction set forth herein.
The first argument this Court shall consider against this dastardly behavior is one calling into focus the necessity of respecting the rightful and proper use of certain areas, pursuant to the Second Restatement of Space Usage § 734. As Qoheleth opined, “all things have their season;”[1] so too do all activities have their proper place. The proper place of silence is the library, and the proper noise of the library is non-noise. If we were to mismatch activities and their proper place across Grounds, the fabric of campus life would be torn asunder. Could one imagine if the Corner were to become a place of sober self-improvement, the Pavilion a bastion of modest frugality, and the Darden School of Business a home to intellectual thought? Such activities would be signs of incipient Shakespearean madness throughout Grounds, just as surely as when Duncan’s horses ate each other in Macbeth. Thus, we must preserve the Law Library as a place of solitude, reflection, and above all else, quiet. I ask you, my dear reader: Must there not be one place in the entirety of Grounds dedicated to silence? And indeed, there is but one place where one may fairly and reasonably demand quiet: the Law Library. You are free to enjoy your ghastly cacophony literally anywhere else in Charlottesville—so why must you interpose your unholy caterwauling in the one place it is not welcome? Find yourself an empty classroom in the Law School building, an empty room in Pavilion (those study rooms I have scarce seen breached by a book), an empty room literally anywhere else on Grounds, or even an empty room in your own lodgings!
Furthermore, those who pollute the library with their classes’ noiseful Zoomery are engaged in a reckless disservice to their classmates who may require more peace and quiet in their study locations than they themselves do. Many can struggle with focus and concentration wherever they encounter errant sounds, and there are fearfully few places on Grounds where one can escape such sounds. It is thus a tremendous disservice to these individuals to assault their sensitive ears with the meaningless mumble of your online courses.
The library is a sacred place full of rite and ritual, and with that sacred investiture comes a long-held rule: that the peace and quiet of the space must not be disturbed, an observation first noted in Lucy Loud v. Steven Silent, N.H. 1873. This Court views itself as the guardian and protector of the aforementioned High Rule, assuming a role similar to that of the lonely guardian of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Should anyone violate this injunction, the Court will intrude with great and terrible vigor on the sinister conversations of those who transgress against the sacred silence of the library. It shall terrify couples chattering over homework,[2] graduate students chatting away in their little nooks, and music-playing staff pushing around trolleys of books. I shall greet these varied malefactors with the same devastating syllogism. Question One: “Do you know where we are right now?” To which they will answer dumbly, “Uhhh, the Library?” Leading me naturally to Question Two: “So why the f*** are you talking right now?!?” With dumb stupefaction inevitably staring back at me, I know I have put these villains in their place. In light of this ruling, I eagerly anticipate publicly shaming all those who profane the stacks with their Zoomery.
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Per the order of the Court of Petty Appeals, applying the Proper Use Doctrine, Defendants are thus enjoined from Zooming in the library. Should they violate this injunction, they do so at the peril of a public shaming.
It is so ordered.
Calamaro, J, dissenting:
While this is an issue of duty—to whom should we defer, the Zoom-caller or the library-goer—I find this case is ripe to consider an issue that should be near and dear to every aspiring attorney’s heart: avoiding the library. Namely, I contend that the library is a place to be avoided, it is a place to be looked down upon, and it is no more the right of a library-goer to experience quietness than it is for the Zoomer to take a call. Neither should be there.
The library is a house of horrors.
In I Am Legend, Will Smith enters a bank and stumbles upon a bunch of zombies standing around together, asleep. It is scary, and it is not nearly as bad as the library. Do you want to see and be seen by your fellow law students “StUdYiNg?” Then go to the library. Do you want to be uncomfortable, constantly, in those poor excuses for chairs, with poor lighting and a bathroom that is about fifteen steps too far? Go to the library. It is the perfect place for those things.
Or, you could stay home, buy a desk on Craigslist for fifteen bucks and choose to write a Virginia Law Weekly article there instead of at the library. You can take a call, listen to music, or even water a plant at home while you write—go crazy. Plus, you have all the coffee you could want at home, as well as a bottle of wine for those crazy nights studying Fed Tax. Do you know what doesn’t have these things? The library. The library has crap coffee, zero wine, and the ghosts of lawyers past (paintings) on the walls. Why would you want this? Go home.
If you’re in the library, you can’t work on building your own mahogany bookshelf for that classic “I have gOoD bRaIn” picture in front of your books you never open.
You and I both know that sitting in a poorly ventilated and stuffy area like the library is a recipe for disaster, even with a mask.[3] Everyone is on edge, no one wants to talk to anyone else, and it’s the library. Go home. It’s #COVID2k20. COVID is the perfect time to work on the skills that matter after law school and having your own set of reporters is possibly the most important of them all. How else are you going to take that definitely cool-looking, totally not cliché and a joke of a picture, picture in front of your reporter set? That is really how you know you’ve made it—having a bunch of reporters no one will ever read gathering dust on the bookshelf, just so you can pretend to have the best words possible for your clients. If that’s not the dream, I don’t know why you’re in law school.
Tonseth, J. dissenting:
The question in this case does not center on what rights law students have within the library as a whole. Rather, at the core of this issue, we must analyze whether the formation of UVA Law’s library was constitutional. The answer to that basic question is affirmatively no, with the only recourse being to abolish and demolish the Arthur J. Morris Law Library.
In the issue at hand, the Majority clearly favors a strong and seemingly unrestrained delegation of legislative power to the Executive. As such, although there is no constitutional grant of authority for UVA Law to establish a library, the majority assumes the library’s existence and establishment was an appropriate exercise of the Dean’s executive power. This assumption has proved the most obvious point to me about this case: The Majority is still struggling with basic reading and comprehension. Petitioners did not provide proof of the by-line in the UVA Law Constitution that established a library. Further, petitioners were unable to point to the establishment of a library in Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village plan in 1819, when UVA Law was founded. Confronted with the counterargument that Jefferson did not intend to establish a law library, as he left his entire book collection to the Library of Congress after their collection was destroyed in 1812, petitioners demurred and simply turned off their Zoom camera, citing “technical difficulties.”
It is beyond my esteemed sense of self to let this abuse of power by the Majority go unchecked. While I am not advocating for the “complete deconstruction” of the administrative state, it is obvious that the Arthur J. Morris Library was founded on a faulty premise. Plus, using substantive due process to further coddle law students is bad precedent, so any “rights” the Majority makes up are all farcical. I dissent.
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[1] Ecclesiastes 3:1
[2] I have never ever understood this dynamic of studying as date-night. I suppose it can serve well as an innocuous way to hang out with someone in the early stages of an affaire du coeur, but I don’t consider the studying version of myself, hunched over books, grinding my teeth, and sweating from my forehead, to be my most seductive look. Perhaps others can pull it off better.
[3] This is endorsed by Drew University of Science.