I think that the bar peoples are going to want to interview me before they let me take the stupid test in July.

I have to attach riders to my applications, explaining my affirmative answers to a couple questions. Why? I've never been arrested (let alone convicted), I haven't declared bankruptcy, I've really never done anything bad.

But I did get a divorce, which certainly counts as "legal action" which requires a Rider; and

I went to Liberty University.

Where they micro-manage their students' lives. I think it's not as bad now as it was when I was there - but it's still pretty bad.

My bar application asks if we received "reprimands, discipline, were suspended or expelled" from a college, and if so, we have to attach a dean's report ... or something. I had wondered what I should do ... Liberty issues what they call "reprimands," and I certainly received a handful of them. But they do not carry the import that seemed implied by the bar application. But I spoke with a friend who had a relatively similar situation, and she said she decided to disclose. So I thought, what the hell. Why not? But I can't remember the details - it was after all, 13-17 years ago. It wasn't a big deal - I never had any true consequences from the reprimands (it was a nominal monetary fine).

So I called Liberty to try and find out if they had a record of my reprimands. They don't. Because the things I was reprimanded for were so intensely minor, they don't KEEP records. They only keep records on offenses that are 18 reprimands or higher (per offense), and mine were all 3 rep offenses, which used to be the smallest. Now it looks like the smallest is 1 Rep, and then it jumps to 4.

So I wrote a rider, and I explained the system, pointed out that all "reprimands" came from fellow students (RAs), and that the school does not have any records.

I also let them know that my recollection is that I had reprimands for the following 'offenses':

skirt not reaching the knee
dresser in my dorm not dusted/floor not vacuumed
late for chapel
[likely late for curfew, which was 6 p.m. on Church days (Sunday and Weds) and midnight on weekends]

I notice from the current list of offenses that not dusting your dresser (or vacuuming your floor, or washing your sink) are no longer on there.

Here are some of my favorites from the list:

4 Reps:

"Disturbance/non-participation during Convocation" this may mean you must sing praise songs, and you must raise your hands in the air in showing of your love for jesus.
"Improper personal contact (anything beyond hand-holding)"
"Music code violation" *

6 Reps:

"Attendance at a dance"
"Entering entryway of opposite sex on campus or allowing the same"
"Improper social behavior" - what does this even mean?
"Possession and/or use of tobacco"
"Unauthorized room change" **

12 Reps

"Attendance at, possession or viewing of, an "R," "NC-17" or "X"-rated movie"***
"Entering the residence hallway of the opposite sex or allowing the same"
"Entering the space above ceiling tiles"****
"Out of residence hall overnight or substantial portion of the night without permission (after 2:00 a.m.)" *****
"Participation in an unauthorized petition or demonstration" - 1st Amendment much?
"Students of the opposite sex visiting alone at an off-campus residence"

From there, the discipline gets a little more traditional, other than the policing of not only the sex lives of college students, but the sexual talk and a seeming attempt at sexual thought police.

* When I was there, a girl on my hall got written up for having the Little Mermaid soundtrack. This brings a few things into my head: 1) How awful it was that we weren't allowed to listen to anything but "Christian music" - which meant music which carried with it the message of salvation through jesus christ (another person was written up for either Bach or Beethoven); 2) who the HELL was I going to school with that they'd bring The Little Mermaid soundtrack to college!!!

** In my Junior year, I had it made. My roommate was my best friend. We were very lucky, because our RAs that year had NO business being in leadership at a Christian college. They helped us sneak off campus (overnight!!), they had a t.v. in their room [which was illegal then, I'm not seeing it on the list now]. They also didn't write us up for an unauthorized room change. Because my friend and I took the two twin beds (which we slept in) and pushed them together, then used one loft bed to create a private nook for our pushed together beds. This was scandalous to many people on our floor, but our RAs didn't care. We thought the scandalized girls were dumb, not to mention highly uncool. Clearly we just wanted to talk at night, and we needed to be that close so my friend could scratch my back while she read out loud from whatever book we were reading at the time. What's the big f'ing deal? And no - this was not a lesbian affair. We also got away with listening to Toad the Wet Sprocket without a single concern of being written up for it.

*** I think this is a surprisingly big violation. It's a $50 fine to see a rated R movie? This was something I never got written up for, but was always nervous. We had a dollar theater right down the street from campus, and we went to the movies all the time - and I highly doubt I saw a single PG or PG-13 movie.

**** Yeah, people were this desperate to get out of chapel. There were boys on the sports teams who had entire bedrooms set up in the ceiling tiles. Food stashes, blankets, pillows ... and come 9:55, when everyone was on their way to chapel, they'd just climb up into the ceiling and go back to sleep - that way they wouldn't be spotted during room check. Interestingly, the most scandalous things that happened when people were hiding from room check was that they ended up witnesses a lot of awful behavior by the RAs. On my hall, a girl hid under her bed one morning, and saw the RA come in for "room check" and then proceed to eat all this girls' food. Totally binging. Others witnessed RAs stealing and snooping.

***** If I didn't have those cool RAs in my junior year, I would have gotten written up for this. My roommate and I went to a friend's off campus house one night, sneaking off campus in his van at 2 a.m. We just wanted to sleep late and stay in our jammies all day on a Sunday. Our friend lived in a house with 2 other boys, and one of them was away. So my friend and I stayed in his room. And this brought on "lesbian accusation #2" -- when he returned from out of town, he was told we stayed in his room. He went OFF, because he only has a double (queen?) bed, and he couldn't believe we slept together in it. He was disgusted and upset and called us yelling and threatening to turn us into the Dean of Women for being lesbians. Repeat. We were not lesbians and did not have an inkling of a sexual relationship. Liberty people are SUPER uptight.

Labels: bar exam, liberty university

posted by Zuska @ 8:55 AM

1 Comments:

At Friday, May 04, 2007 12:43:00 PM, googiebaba said…

Zuska, this post made me so interested in your back story. How is it that you choose this school for undergrad, and how did you end up where you now? Also, its interesting that the school is named Liberty, when it seems like the students' have none.