Is Middlebury College unduly harsh in its discipline? That’s a matter of perspective, and a “permanent” letter in a college student’s file can be a deal-breaker for some purposes. Grad school, for example. And that means it could conceivably make it hard for Elizabeth Dunn to achieve her goal.

Dunn told the Seven Days reporter that although they are applying to law school, they are not concerned with the discipline on their record hurting their chances of being accepted. Dunn said their backup plan is working in the Bronx public defender’s office.

Who are the “they”? That would be Dunn, as she either prefers her special pronoun or has multiple people residing inside her head. Will law school still want her with a blemish on her undergrad record? Certainly some law school will. Empty seats are depressing.

But what about that backup plan of working in the Bronx public defender’s office? Putting aside that there is no such thing, as Bronx Defenders is a private organization that contracts for the representation of indigent defendants, her lack of research and knowledge reveals another gap. Even in the Bronx, poor defendants get real, actual lawyers, so working for the Bronx public defender is not an alternative to attending law school, unless she means doing some other job, like being head photocopier.

Dunn’s confusion, lack of research and needless concern about how this permanent letter will impact her chances of getting into law school is the outgrowth of a choice she made.

Dunn said they stood by their decision to post the list.

A reminder, “they” means her, not “they.” And the list to which they refer is this one, where they took it upon themselves to post other people’s rumors. They was just bursting to do something, and so they did.

Dunn’s post ended with these words: “here’s to not being complicit in 2018 and feel free to dm me more names to add to this status because I could really give a fuck about protecting the privacy of abusers.”

Did Middlebury?

“I’ve received official college discipline in the form of a letter that goes on my permanent record, for violating the respect for persons policy and obstructing a Title IX investigation (i.e. not sharing the names of survivors),” said Dunn, who uses they/them pronouns.

The question is whether the “respect for persons” violation relates to the 36 males she named or the “survivors” whose stories she outed without her (if “they” is used for the singular, shouldn’t “her” be used for the plural?) permission about the men. That the letter includes obstructing an investigation by refusing to share the “survivors” names, suggests that the males named wasn’t of much concern to the college. Clearly, it didn’t concern them.

Dunn said they stood by their decision to post the list.

“This harm is being done by, like, specific people and by specific individuals, and if we want to move toward a conversation about, like, healing and accountability and growth, there needs to be some acknowledgment that harm was done,” Dunn told Seven Days.

Sure, a letter in her permanent file falls shy on the discipline scale of expulsion, as is the favored discipline for males accused, if not quite proven, of sex-regret, but what of Dunn’s future? What of Dunn’s hope of being a lawyer, of defending the indigent in the Bronx?

Had Dunn dreamed of being a sex crimes prosecutor for Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, the concern would be clear. She would be the prosecutor who would play hide the Brady, lie about the ID, conceal discovery and refuse any reasonable plea offer. After all, that’s pretty much what her list was, and she was not merely quite proud of herself for smearing the unproven guys, but unrepentant about doing so after the error of her infantile ignorance was pointed out to her.

But Dunn doesn’t dream of being a prosecutor. It would appear, if she got her story straight about the fact that public defenders are lawyers, like real lawyers just like all the other real lawyers, that she (oops, “they”) wants to defend the accused. At least that’s what they think they want to do.

Elizabeth Dunn’s zeal and passion in furtherance of her beliefs are, in a strange way, commendable. But her intellect and ethics fail to back her up. This reflects a pervasive problem among the woke, and one that gets subsumed in the applause of their righteous supporters.

Dunn’s grasp of what lawyers do, and public defenders do, is to pick the people, the offenses, the outcomes, that align with her feelings. Her Middlebury list outed males, about whom she had no personal knowledge, because she believed it was her duty not to be “complicit” by taking action on behalf of others. Would Dunn be the public defender who refused to defend males? Or just males accused of crimes with female victims? Is that how indigent defense works, where lawyers get to pick and choose those defendants whom they feel are sufficiently worthy of their representation?

Or even worse, would Dunn be the lawyer defending a male accused of domestic abuse who, during plea negotiations with the prosecutor, responded that the offer wasn’t harsh enough because her client was horrible and deserved a harsher sentence?

There is nothing reflected by Dunn’s actions or attitude to suggest that she should be allowed anywhere near a client, anywhere near a court.

But then, how many lawyers, criminal defense in general and public defenders in particular, already have their license and their job, and share Dunn’s attitude toward defendants? How many are warriors for the cause, happy to throw their clients into the hole forever because they believe they are entitled to destroy their own clients’ lives when they believe they are evil?

Maybe I’ve been too harsh on Dunn, to contend that she has no business being a lawyer. Maybe she would blend in without anyone seeing anything about her attitude, her ethics, her representation, that differs noticeably from the other public defenders who believe, like Dunn, that they are entitled to substitute their beliefs for their duty to their client. Maybe they’re all sex crime prosecutors, in action if not name. At least in their hearts.