Law school doesn't just occasion flashbacks to high school; sometimes it bears the hallmarks of elementary school - like bullying.
Though nearly everyone I've met at Bucerius has been really, really nice - Germans and international students - there has been at least one glaring exception:
Several weeks ago, a Bucerius student - one of the 69 internationals - made it perfectly clear that my blogging - indeed, my very existence - was personally offensive to them. Anonymously, of course. For apparently I am to know what a lousy person I am, but not who is making this charge.
Subsequently there have been several other comments that have also taken issue with other Bucerius-related things I've said. Except that, for the most part, they aren't really criticisms of my assertions as much as they are criticisms of me. But they, too, were made under pseudonym, to make sure that I think it's simply from a random person with some genuine concern. Of course, the ruse is for naught - it's apparent that the commenter knows me from Bucerius - but again, I'm not to know who they are.
Then Saturday, attached to the post containing my ADR essay, came another comment masquerading as one from the class's professor:
"Wunderbar Cathy!You seem to have an excellent understanding of the topic and it's underlying issues. I hope you teach some of your classmates who might not grasp the subject as well as yourself.
You are definatley a strong canditate for a B+ grade.
Yours sincerley,
[professor's name]"
(Note: apart from redacting the professor's name and adding quotes around the whole post, I copied and pasted it here exactly as it was submitted. So please infer a "[sic]" where necessary.)
Pretty clever, huh? Notice the allusion to the B+ grade, a reference to the comments made in an earlier exam post about my exams. Notice - well, you can't notice, because I deleted it - that this person used the full name of the course instructor as the source of the commenter. Which, of course, was a lie, and I deleted it so this very nice person would not have to have his name widely and permanently associated on the Internet with comments that reflected so poorly on him.
So what to do about my bully... Is it necessary to do anything? I sit here more in bemusement than hurt. Perhaps in fourth grade - the last time when I was bullied - it stung a lot more. But I've certainly grown up since then, even if my bully hasn't.
But I am inclined to blog it. Part of the purpose of my blog is to chronicle my story of what it's like to be in law school, and a truth of that experience is that someone has chosen to do this. Voluntarily and publicly. I have no desire to cover it up, to somehow exonerate it through my silence. My bully has made themselves part of my story, and so I will tell it.
Also, let's not minimize what's actually going on. This kind of commenting, from a fellow student, is the cyber equivalent of putting anonymous, harassing notes on my locker. Though it's happening in another forum, it's no less antagonistic. And just because the desired effect of reducing me to tears and self-doubt hasn't occurred, it's still quite annoying. I have enough to do to keep the spam crap off my site; having to parse through the forged aliases isn't really what I'd like to be doing with my time.
But beyond that, I'm just flabbergasted that someone just mere months away from being a fully-licensed lawyer - an officer of the court - would feel that this kind of behavior is appropriate. Note, we're not talking about some anonymous nutcase on the Internet, nor are we talking about someone with a legitimate and fair criticism of a specific contention I've made. We're talking about someone in my fairly small community, who knows me and sees me every day, yet who doesn't have the guts to look me in the eye and tell me that they have a problem with *me*.
Instead this person hides behind a patchwork of pseudonyms, cloaking their cowardice as they lob gratuitous attacks at me, seemingly with impunity. Clearly they think there is no way I could never know who was behind it.
But perhaps this confidence is misplaced.